Eleven members of the 8th Abia Assembly, elected under the platform of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have staged another walkout today at plenary in Abia state House of Assembly (ABHA), Umuahia, Abia state.
Drama started when the member representing Ukwa-West state constituency in Abia State House of Assembly (ABHA) made an observation and raised an objection concerning the names of the principal officers as contained in the minutes of the last plenary but was ignored by the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Emmanuel Emeruwa.
In their press briefing shortly after the walkout, Hon. Adiele, insisted that PDP would not have majority members ABHA and be forced to take up the minority positions.
In his words: “PDP is the party with the majority members in the house and it is not done anywhere in parliament for a minority party to produce majority leader”.
This, he disclosed to newsmen, that he pointed it out to be corrected in the minutes during plenary, adding that the principal officers announced was not the resolution of the house, but was turned down by the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Emmanuel Emeruwa.
Contributing, the member representing Obingwa-East State Constituency, Hon. Solomon Akpulonu revealed that they would advise their party (PDP) to announce their nominees for the principal officers.
He maintained that there is no law in the rules of the ABHA that gives the Speaker the sole right to announce the principal officers, insisting that PDP is the majority party in ABHA and should be allowed to produce the majority leader as enshrined by their Rules.
Hon. Akpulonu further noted that they would approach the Court of law to seek the interpretations of their rules, especially, Order 8, Rule 42.
He noted that the rule stated that the majority leader shall be selected or nominated from amongst the member of the party that has the majority members in the house of assembly.
“We will allow the Court of law to interprete this particular section of ABHA rules for us”, he stated.
He accused the Speaker, Hon. Emeruwa of flagrant impunity against the established rules of ABHA.
Information gathered revealed that PDP has 11 members, Labour Party (LP) has 10, Young Progressive Party (YPP) has two while All Progressive Party (APC) has one; making a total of 24 members.
Efforts to reach the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Emeruwa on the matter failed as several calls put across to his phone, got no response as at the time of filing this report.
