Committee Chairmanship: Tension mounts as Reps await list

There’s tension in the House of Representatives as Members expect the list of committee chairmen on Thursday.

Recall that the speaker, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila had last week announced that the list would be made public in September when the House reconvenes.

But sources close to leadership in the House claimed that it was just a decoy to put lawmakers minds at rest “because is a sensitive issue.

According to one of the sources, the essence of selling a dummy to the lawmakers is to allow the hangover of election to properly settle down.


“Now that we know the House is navigating in the right direction we pray the list is released on Thursday like we were told.

Findings, however, reveal that the likely release of the chairmanship list has led to palpable fears as lawmakers do not know what the selection committee has done.

A source said that "our greatest fear has been confirmed as prominent lawmakers from the South South and South East geo-political zones were heavily marginalised.

The source who craved anonymity said "can you imagine that most of the oil resources committees were not given to those from oil-producing states.

“They were allocated to our colleagues from other parts of the country and the South East too suffered same fate.

“Thursday is not far, we hope to hear something different but I doubt because I know how this place works.

As at the time of filling this report the main opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Members were already heading to the party’s Secretariat to hold an emergency meeting.

It could not be confirmed whether the meeting has any link with the impending release of the list of committee chairmen or other issues.

It could be recalled that in the last three assemblies the South-South had a fair share of the major oil-related committees.

In the Aminu Tambuwal led House, Dakuku Peterside of Rivers State headed committee on Petroleum Resources, Downstream while Muraino Ajibola of Oyo state headed committee on Petroleum Resources, Upstream and Henshaw Ewah of Akwa Ibom was in charge of Gas Resources.

Under Yakubu Dogara, Victor Nwokolo of Delta State headed committee in Petroleum Resources, Upstream, Joseph Akinlaja of Ondo State headed committee on Petroleum Resources, Downstream and this trend had remained.