By Michael Oche
Bashir Usman Gorau, a newly elected Member of the House of Representatives, has faulted the endorsement of the leadership of the 10th National Assembly by the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The president-elect and the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) have endorsed Senator Godswill Akpabio and Barau Jibrin for Senate and deputy Senate president of the 10th National Assembly. They also endorsed Tajuddeen Abbass and Benjamin Kalu, for Speaker and deputy for the House of Representatives.
However reacting to the endorsement, the 33-year-old who won election under the platform of the (PDP), said constitution of the country have given full mandate to the members of the National Assembly to choose the best they felt is capable to lead them, adding that endorsement will not yield any positive results.
The Member-elect representing Gada-Goronyo Federal Constituency of Sokoto state, spoke in Abuja.
He said both Tinubu and outgoing Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila should allow the members of the 10th Assembly to select their leaders, as they will not be around when the leadership will perform its activities in the house.
“Tinubu being the president-elect has no constitutional right to choose for us. This is not their business. This is an issue and affair relating to the members of the House of Representatives and Senate respectively.
“By this endorsement, they are literally intruding into the National Assembly, which will likely undermine the statutory conduct of the legislature and we will not accept that” he said.
Speaking on the House of Representatives in particular, Gorau said Majority of the members-elect are not supporting the endorsement by the present-elect including members of the APC.
He said although APC is the ruling party, but it lacks the power to enforce any body as a speaker in the House, adding that they are the greater majority as they have members from the opposition parties twice than that of the APC.
“The ruling party doesn’t have the capacity and number to decide who is who in the House of Representatives. We the new members are 243 out 358 members that we have presently. So there is no way they can just endorse someone and we fold our arms and watch. is not possible.”
Gorau said as far as they are concerned, 90% of the new members of the House have endoerse Mukhtar Aliyu Betara as the new speaker and that he has gone far in his Mobilization.
According to him, with the number of greater minority and other members from the ruling party, Betara will be the next Speaker of the House with or without endorsement of the APC.
“All of us have agreed that Betara is our candidate and he will emerge the Speaker. We will not vote incompetence person and we don’t want a rubber stamp Speaker in the house. Betara has all it takes to be the Speaker and whether they like it not he is going to be,” he added.
