Tambuwal hands over House of Reps Leadership ahead of May 29 Inauguration as Sokoto state Governor
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, on Tuesday, handed over the leadership of the house to his Deputy, Emeka Ihedioha, ahead of the end of his tenure on June 6.
Tambuwal’s move was in order to avoid holding two political offices as he will be inaugurated as the Governor of Sokoto State on May 29 as governor.
Tambuwal, who spoke with journalists soon after Tuesday’s sitting of the House, disclosed that the members agreed at an executive session that Ihedioha should preside over the affairs of the House till June 6.
Speaking to journalists after his handover, he said: “My stay here in the House would have effectively come to a end on May 29 after I would have been inaugurated as governor.
“We have to avoid any possible issues on this, since the constitution is silent on what happens when a sitting speaker has to move to another office.”
According to him, the 1999 Constitution does not envisage a situation where the speaker will leave one office for another, while the oath taken for the current one is subsisting.
Explaining why he handed over to his deputy, instead of allowing a Speaker Pro-tempore to be elected by the members of the House, he said:
“At our executive session, a member came up with an ingenious way of dealing with the matter on hand, which members accepted.
“He came up with the idea that the portion of the House rules in question should be suspended to enable the deputy speaker to continue to preside over the House instead of electing a new speaker.”
Tambuwal stated that the other alternative would have been to shut down the House before June 6, but said he was not in support of such a move.
“I won’t shut down the House. The House can sit tomorrow, Thursday and possibly the other sitting days of next week.”
