The national working committee
(NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has suspended Ndudi Elumelu and six
other members of the house of representatives.
The other lawmakers are Wole Oke;
Lynda Ikpeazu; Anayo Edwin; Gideon Gwadi; Toby Okechukwu and Adekoya
Abdul-Majid.
Their suspension was made known
in a statement by Kola Ologbondiyan, spokesman of the party.
The NWC had summoned the
lawmakers on Thursday over the role they were alleged to have played in the
minority leadership tussle of the lower legislative chamber.
According to the statement, the
lawmakers’ action was an act of insubordination. They were ordered to proceed
on a month suspension.
“The Party noted the roles played
by the underlisted members which resulted in the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, reading another list for Minority
Leadership of the House other than the list submitted to him by our party, the
PDP,” the statement read.
“After preliminary examination by
the NWC, it was evident that the roles played by the above-mentioned members,
bordered on indiscipline, insubordination and disobedience of party directives
contrary to Section 58 (1)(b)(c)(f)(h) of the PDP Constitution (as amended in
2017), which provides that:
“Subject to the provision of this
Constitution, the Party shall have power to discipline any member who says or
does anything likely to bring the party into disrepute, hatred or contempt;
disobeys or neglects to carry out lawful directives of the party or any organ
or officer of the party; engages in anti-party activities; or engages in any
conduct likely to cause disaffection among members of the party or is likely to
disrupt the peaceful, lawful and efficient conduct of the business of the
party.
“Consequent upon this, the
above-mentioned members of our party are hereby suspended for one month and
this matter is hereby referred to the National Disciplinary Committee of our
party, in keeping with Section 57(3) of the PDP Constitution.”
During Wednesday’s session, some
lawmakers in the PDP had exchanged blows over the position of the minority
leader.
The session got rowdy when Femi
Gbajabiamila, the speaker, was about to announce minority principal officials.
Kingsley Chinda, a PDP lawmaker
from Rivers, had said the leadership of his party had written to the speaker to
inform him of its choice for the positions, asking Gbajabiamila to adopt the
list sent by the PDP.
The opposition party had stated
its preference for Chinda as minority leader, Chukwuka Onyema as deputy
minority leader; Yakubu Barde, minority whip and Muraina Ajibola, deputy
minority whip. But Gbajabiamila said there were nine minority political parties
and the PDP alone could not determine who led the minority.
He had moved to read a letter
which he said was signed by 99 members of minority political parties on the
leadership positions but some lawmakers left their seats and started struggling
for the mace which led to a brawl.
The speaker had announced Elumelu
as minority leader, Toby Okechukwu, deputy minority leader; Gideon Gwani,
minority whip; and Adesegun Adekoya, deputy minority whip.
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PDP, you Guy's have selfishness, when APC leaders are calling their members to vote for a certain person you Guy's come up and started playing comedy that APC should allow the legislators to elect their leaders. But see you know, even suspended some who exercised their franchise. You have forgotten that in 2015 you benefitted from indiscipline members of APC.
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