The Governor of Benue State, Hyacinth Alia, and his Zamfara State counterpart, Dauda Lawal, yesterday failed to honour the invitation of the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions Committee over the crisis rocking the assemblies in the two states.
The governors and leadership of their state assemblies were summoned last week following a petition received from a civil society organisation, Guardians of Rule of Law and Democracy, calling for the lower chamber’s takeover of the state assemblies over alleged illegal suspension of lawmakers in both states.
The petition, brought by Ihensekhien Samuel, legal representative of the group, is urging the National Assembly to invoke its constitutional powers to take over the legislative functions of the affected state assemblies under Section 11 of the 1999 Constitution.
At the sitting of the committee yesterday, attended by the suspended lawmakers from both state asemblies, the representative of the group, Samuel said: “Our petition is founded on established precedents,” citing rulings by the Court of Appeal and the Federal High Court.
“No House of Assembly has the jurisdiction to suspend a sitting member for more than 14 days — anything beyond that is unconstitutional,” he said.
He submitted that the state governments had outrightly rejected the National Assembly’s authority to summon them, insisting such invitations lack constitutional backing.
But one of the suspended Zamfara State House of Assembly members argued that: “Before we came here, we were informed that neither the governors nor the assemblies would appear. One of them even boasted in writing that nothing would come of this process.”
Following this, Deputy Chairman of the Public Petitions Committee, Matthew Nwogu, who presided because of the recent change in the chairmanship by Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, expressed concerns that the petition was not procedurally laid on the floor of the chamber.
Presenting his position, Nwogu said: “I have the paper here but there is no House stamp on it.
Until we confirm the petition was duly laid before the House and referred to this committee, we cannot proceed legitimately.”
But the representative of the petitioners was adamant, arguing that the petition was submitted and referred through proper channels, the committee resolved to investigate its procedural standing before making further progress.
In his intervention, the new chairman of the committee, Kwamoti Laori, who was rather an observer at the sitting, pleaded with all involved to be patient while they sort out the issue.
He said “Please, let us follow due process. This matter is emotional, but we cannot let feelings override constitutional procedures.”
Consequently, all the parties involved were asked to reappear on May 14 for the continuation of the hearing.
It will be recalled that both the Zamfara and Benue assemblies have been mired in crisis in the last few months.
In Zamfara, four members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and six from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), were suspended by the Assembly in February 2024 for allegedly holding an illegal plenary leading to two factional speakers: Bilyaminu Moriki and Bashar Gummi.
While in Benue, the state assembly suspended 13 lawmakers for three months for allegedly opposing the removal of the State Chief Judge, Maurice Ikpambese, who was accused of corrupt practices and gross misconduct by the state governor.
