Leadership crisis rocks Gombe Assembly as members ask Speaker to resign over Constitution Review

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3 years ago

A fresh leadership crisis has engulfed the Gombe State House of Assembly as some of the members have asked the Speaker, Abubakar Luggerewo to resign from his position to allow another person to lead.

The members however gave the embattled Speaker another leeway asking him to step aside if he cannot coordinate the House to present its position to the National Assembly on the proposed alteration of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended.

Seven of the members appended their signatures on a paper to that effect
jointly spoke to newsmen on Saturday accusing the Speaker of alleged sinister moves by dragging his feet in mobilizing the voices of the people of Gombe State to make their positions on the proposed constitution review which deadline for submission to NASS ended Thursday, 15th September 2022.

The spokesman for the group, Ibrahim Rambi Ayala representing Billiri East Constituency, who spoke on behalf of six others stated their resolution and also appealed to the National Assembly for another opportunity to be able to collate and present the positions of the State.

According to him, “We want to put it on record that the leadership of the House, in particular, the Speaker, has been employing various tactics to frustrate the process and disenfranchise the good people of Gombe from making their voices heard through us their representatives.”

He said that after conducting a retreat for the members of the House and a public hearing, the Speaker wants to unilaterally drown the voices of the people of Gombe State on what he described as an important national duty.

He also said that all the State Houses of Assembly were expected to transmit their positions on or before the 15th of September, 2022 but regretted that, ” the Gombe State House of Assembly had been under lock and key and the Speaker is reluctant or has blatantly refused to convene plenary for us to vote on the constitutional alteration”.

The group, therefore, called for the convocation of plenary on Tuesday, 20th September 2022 to enable them to give concurrence to the bills for consideration.

Those that signed the statement and were present at the press briefing included: Yahaya Mohammed Kaka representing Akko North constituency; Markus Samuel, Pero Chonge constituency; Bashir Barau Yakubu, Kaltungo West constituency; Bappah Usman, Funakaye South constituency; Tulfukut M Kardi, Billiri West constituency; Hamza Adamu, Balanga constituency and Rambi Ibrahim Ayala, Billiri East.

But in a swift response to the allegations raised against him, the embattled Speaker, Abubakar Luggerewo denied the allegations by the group saying that the House can only act on the matter after receiving the ad-hoc Committee’s report.

According to him, “the group got it all wrong, more so that the House under my leadership is ever ready to discharge its responsibility anytime the House receives the report.”

On the submission deadline to the National Assembly, Abubakar Luggerewo said that it was the House that gave themselves the deadline of 15th September 2022 and not the NASS adding that the NASS only asked them to submit before the commencement of political campaigns.

He further said that as of the moment, only 12 States have presented their positions promising that the Gombe State House of Assembly will be the next to present its position.

The Speaker then said that among the 44 bills up for consideration by the State House of Assembly include Local Government Autonomy; Autonomy of the State Assembly; Autonomy of the State Judiciary; compulsory and free education and food security as top of the priority.

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