The abrupt resignation of the Speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly, Moses Sule, and the subsequent election of Gabriel Dewan of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) as his replacement in the twilight of the Court of Appeal judgment, which swept away all elected Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members in the State and National Assembly from Plateau State, have further amplify the raging political impasse in the state.
At the moment, the only elected political officeholder standing on the platform of the PDP is Governor Caleb Muftwang, who is also awaiting the verdict of the Supreme Court. Head or tail, no matter where the pendulum berths at the apex court, the politics of the state will no longer remain the same in the next four years.
The Appeal Court judgements have altered the composition of members in the State House of Assembly. Prior to this, the PDP had 16 members, the All Progressive Congress (APC) had six members, and the Labour Party (LP) and the YPP had one member each. But with the judgment of the Appeal Court, which sacked all 16 PDP members, the APC at the moment has 21 members, while the LP and YPP retained their respective seats.
However, the sudden resignation of the Speaker, Moses Sule, a few days before the Appeal Court judgment and the immediate election of Honourable Gabriel Dewan as the Speaker of the House have sparked off a fresh row between the PDP and APC in the state. This was further compounded by the two-month recess announced by the new Speaker.
The APC in the state alleged that the recess was in active connivance between the Speaker and the executive arms of the government to prevent the inauguration of the new APC members until the determination of the Supreme Court judgment on the state gubernatorial election.
Already, there are insinuations in some quarters that the APC members, if inaugurated, have concluded arrangements to commence an immediate sitting where some salient issues, such as the dissolution of the 17 Caretaker Committee Chairmen, the probe of the N500 million first lady to the victims of the Plateau crisis in four local government areas, and other activities of the government in the past six months, will be subjected to scrutiny and might likely ignite impeachment moves against the governor if found wanting ahead of the Supreme Court judgment.
It was further learnt that the new Speaker in turn might have resorted to the idea of recess to shield himself from immediate impeachment as soon as the new members are inaugurated. Also, there is filler that the APC members, in conjunction with the party, have elected a new speaker and other principals of the House but are waiting to rectify and formalise such at its first sitting after the inauguration.
Though the APC elected members have yet to collect their certificates of return from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Sunday Tribune findings revealed that the state chapter of the party, along with the 21 members, is making moves to ensure that the new members are inaugurated as soon as they collected their certificates of return from INEC.
The question being asked at the moment is: who will inaugurate the new members? More so, the House has gone on recess and might not likely reconvene until 23rd January next year. The APC is insisting that the House must be opened for inauguration and legislative business, and the Speaker is saying the business of the house is being put on hold until January 24 next year. However, the legality of this is being questioned by the APC.
However, the Speaker, in a signed statement, emphatically declared that he would not swear in the new members until January and added that the new members expected to join the assembly would not be sworn in until after the expiration of the previously declared two-month recess.
The Speaker dismissed the insinuation of a conspiracy to frustrate the inauguration and declared that he did not close the house purposely to prevent the swearing-in of incoming members, adding that he had the legal authority to adjourn the house.
He explained: “The house adjourned the plenary till January 23rd when there was no court verdict yet, making the present members legitimate to decide on any motion. During the last sitting, a motion to adjourn plenary until January 23rd was moved and seconded without any contrary opinion. The House’s resolution has become a legal document. All present members agreed to return to their constituencies and engage with their constituents.
“So, any insinuation claiming that the house was closed to stop the swearing-in of the new members is not true. What I know is that even when the house made the decision, there were no new members. As a speaker, I was unaware that the PDP members would be sacked. So, plenary was adjourned three days before the judgment came.
“As far as I am concerned as the speaker, the new members are not yet part of my assembly because they have not presented their certificate of return to me. They will become my members only when they write to me through the office of the clerk. After that, I will invite them and officially inform them that the house is on recess and ask them to return when the house reconvenes.
“This has happened in many places, including the National Assembly. The house cannot interrupt its recess just because new members have arrived. It’s not done that way, anywhere. It was the resolution of the house, adopted, and is now a legal document. I cannot go against that.”
In a swift reaction, the APC disagreed with the speaker and also faulted his emergence as the arrowhead of the House. The State Publicity Secretary of the party, Slyvanus Namang, narrated that apart from the 16 PDP members that were sacked by the Appeal Court, there are other six members of the House who are of the APC, adding that under normal circumstances, the Speaker ought to have come from his party, not from YPP, which has just one member.
He explained that the process that produced him was illegal and therefore should lay claim to the leadership position of the House, adding that House rules were circumvented to perpetuate the illegality.
On the claim that the house will be open until next January, Namang declared that:
“The house is not his personal property; there are rules and regulations guiding the operation of the house. If he doesn’t know the house rules, those of us from outside will educate him. He is one of the eight members, and he is a minority among the eight, so he cannot hold the seven others to ransom.
“Nature abhors vacuum; his election as Speaker is illegal, and he knows it; his election is part of the rascality of the PDP; they cannot continue to hold the people of Plateau State to ransom; I can assure you that the House will convene as soon as the 16 members get their certificates of return.”
A member of the ninth Assembly who is also one of the sixteen declared by the Court of Appeal, Nanbol Daniel said the two-month recess was unconstitutional and a deliberate plan to delay their swearing in.
Daniel, a former member that represented the same constituency in the 9th assembly, said the two-month recess is in prejudice to Section 104 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, adding that the timetable of legislative business of PLHA was developed in line with the provisions of Section 104 of the 1999 Constitution as amended.
“In line with the section, the House of Assembly must sit for a period of not less than one hundred and eighty-one days in a year. Any motion, resolution, or bill that is in prejudice to Section 104 will not fly.
“I am sure the speaker knows all the relevant sections in the constitution and the house order because he has been trained during orientation. The speaker has turned the Standing Order of the Plateau State House of Assembly upside down for reasons best known to him.”
He narrated that, as much as dissolution and proclamation have been done by Governor Caleb Mutfwang, the 16 honorable members-elect have no business writing the Clerk of the House regarding the oath of house of assembly member and oath of allegiance.
Daniel added that in the absence of a majority leader, it is the minority leader in this case that will liaise with the speaker in accordance with Order 5, Rule 2, to reconvene the house, adding that seven out of the remaining members of the assembly can convene an extraordinary meeting to address any emergency matter of public interest in line with Order 5 of the assembly.
But contrary to the position of Daniel, the former Speaker of the House, Honourable Istifanus Mwansat, said the controversies over the inauguration are borne out of ignorance, adding that at the moment there are eight members of the House left after the Court sacked the 16 PDP members.
According to him, the quorum for the House to seat in 1/3 and for that of the Plateau Assembly is eight, saying that the Speaker can reconvene the House for eight members to seat and take important decisions in line with the rules of the House, but quickly adding that the new members have to submit themselves for the speaker to be inaugurated.
He said, “They cannot inaugurate themselves, and any sitting that is less than eight is nullity.”Secondly, they cannot inaugurate themselves because the speaker was legally elected, and they must submit themselves before him to be inaugurated. The Speaker has adjourned the House to January 23rd next year; he is the only one who can reconvene the House.
“Has anyone asked for the calendar of the House? Even if there is no issue by now, the House ought to have been on recess. Even if they have certificates of return with them, it does not confer on them membership in the House until they are inaugurated, and they cannot inaugurate themselves. People who don’t have certificates of return in their hands are beginning to agitate for an inauguration. The Speaker cannot begin to talk of their inauguration without seeing their certificates of return, so they are just putting the cart before the horse,” Mwansat said.
Those who have been monitoring the trend of political events as it unfold in the state are of the opinion that both the elected lawmakers angling to be inaugurated and the Speaker have a game up their sleeves.
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