Speakership: Reps move against PDP

THE House of Representatives, yesterday, amended its voting procedures in a bid believed to be aimed at curtailing the influence of outsiders in the election of the next Speaker of the House. In the amendment that was adopted by majority vote, the House resolved to adopt the open secret voting system which would allow members-elect to cast secret votes during the forthcoming leadership contest.


The House’s resolution was immediately interpreted as part of the ongoing move by some members to disregard the adoption of Rep. Muriana Ajibola by the Southwest caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the position.
The amendment of the rule followed a motion brought to the floor of the House by Representative C.I. D. Maduabum, Accord, Anambra State.
In proposing his motion, Maduabum said the subsisting House Rule provided for the adoption of electronic voting in the event of the nomination of two or more members for the position of speaker or deputy speaker.
Noting that the electronic voting cards required for electronic voting in the House of Representatives may not be ready for use during the forthcoming leadership contest, he moved for the amendment of Order 11 Rule 3 (f) (1)  and (11) to read “when two or more members_elect are nominated and seconded as Speaker the election should be conducted as follows: (1) by open secret ballot (11) voting shall be conducted by the Clerks at the Table using the list of the members-elect of the House, who each shall be given a ballot paper to cast his vote with the proposer and seconder as Tellers.”
The motion was seconded by Rep. Uche Ewunife, APGA, Anambra State, who said: “I second my brother on this motion because it is timely and would ease things when the members-elect come to join us.”
The motion was challenged by Independence Ogunewe, PDP, Imo State, who argued that members should be allowed to vote in the open noting that this had been the tradition of the House since 1999.
He said: “The issue at stake here is the word ‘secret’, it should be removed. Our members should be brave enough to openly vote for a candidate of their choice as we did previously.”
Ogunewe argued that the members should be confident enough to vote openly stressing that transparency was part of the democratic culture which the country has embraced.
The counter motion was immediately opposed as members shouted down the proposal.
Deputy Speaker, Mohammed Nafada, who presided asked the House to immediately vote on Ogunewe’s motion. Members unanimously threw it over board.
Following debate on the motion, the House in a voice vote resolved to amend the order and adopted the proposal from Rep. Maduebunam.
The adoption of the motion was immediately hailed by those aiming to truncate the adoption of the zoning arrangement as articulated by the PDP as it would allow members-elect to vote according to their inner persuasions.
The adoption comes in the wake of continuing lobbying by agents of the main contenders for the office of Speaker at the ongoing retreat for new members of the National Assembly spread across the country.
The present contenders for the position are Ajibola from Oyo State who is the choice of the Southwest caucus of the PDP, Mrs. Mulikat Adeola also from Oyo State and Rep. Aminu Tambuwal from Sokoto State who is swimming in the wave of the opposition by members-elect against the zoning of the office to the Southwest.