A mild drama ensued at plenary in
the House of Representatives on Thursday as Rep Muhammad Abdu insisted that a
report on the reviewed conditions of service in the National Assembly be
stepped down.
The drama started when Speaker
Yakubu Dogara called on the Chairman, Conference Committee on the Reviewed
Conditions of Service in the National Assembly, Rep Simon Arabo, to present the
report on Thursday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
reports that the agenda was in the item two of Presentation of Reports in the
lower chamber’s Order Paper.
However, no sooner had Dogara
given Arabo the floor to speak than Abdu (APC-Bauchi) who represents
AlKaleri/Kerfi Federal Constituency, challenged the report presentation.
Abdu argued that the report was
shrouded with controversies that needed to be resolved before its presentation.
According to him, not all members
of the conference committee endorsed the report about to be presented by the
chairman “because we were not aware of meetings where decisions were taken”.
”Some of our members, who are not
here now, would have backed me up. I will plead that the report is not laid now
because there are issues surrounding it.
”Some of us were not invited to
the meetings and are not aware of the report,” he argued.
Arabo, in his response, said Abdu
decided on his own not to honour the invitations to committee meetings.
According to him, a deliberate
absence of a member will and shall not prevent the committee from completing
its job.
“We have concluded the report but
he can write a minority report if he feels strongly about it,” he added.
Some lawmakers also made
contributions to the argument.
However, in his ruling, the
speaker expressed surprise at the development after being assured by the
committee chair that all was well on the report presentation.
”Rep. Arabo has, before now,
assured me that issues over the report have been resolved.
”It won’t be the first time the
parliament will be stepping down a report due to situations like this,” he
said.
Dogara, who thereafter stepped
down the presentation of the report, noted that a resolution of the issues of
concern by the conference committee would make the report better on
presentation.
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