Kogi Shops For Another Speaker

After seeing three speakers in the last two years, the game of changing speaker of Kogi State  House of Assembly to fit the leadership style of the state appears to be a continuous exercise as the state shops for another speaker for the state lawmakers.

Ebira reporters reports that "as the alleged plot to remove Speaker, Kogi State House of Assembly, Prince Mathew Kolawole rages on, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is planning to unseat the likely successor, Hon. Idris Ndako.

"Ndako, currently in PDP, has announced his decision to decamp to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). He is being touted as the next Speaker of the House." the reports explained.

Following Ndakwo move to dump his party in an attempt take over the speakership stool, there are strong indications that the leadership of PDP in Kogi State will stop at nothing to retrieve its mandate back from the lawmaker through the courts in the event that he made good his promise to decamp to APC.

A reliable source gathered that the PDP stakeholders in the state held a meeting at the residence of a former Governor in Abuja over the weekend to deliberate on the rumoured plan of Ndako to dump PDP.

“If not for greed, selfishness and inordinate ambition, what is good about the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the country and Alhaji Yahaya Bello led administration in Kogi State that a lawmaker elected on the platform of the PDP will want to join the APC? Is it the hunger, no salaries and maladministration that have become the order of the day? That means Hon. Ndako has concluded plans to join the oppressors to aggravate the pains of the people he claimed to represent.

“That a lawmaker can cross carpet due to verifiable proofs that there are crises within his party, and as today, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has since settled the rift and internal crisis that almost tore the party apart,” the party stalwart posited.

According to the Electoral Act as amended in 2011 by the National Assembly, a lawmaker at any level risk to lose his or her seat if he or she deliberately decided to dump the party that sponsored him or her for the election without any verifiable crisis in his or her former party.

In respect of the Senator, House of Representative members and State Legislators, the 1999 Constitution as amended specifically in section 68(1)(g) and (2) and 109ig) (2) only makes provisions for the tenure of members of the legislature and not that of the executive.

The provisions clearly state that a state or federal lawmakers must vacate his or her seat after defecting to another political party, member of the Senate or House of Representative shall vacate his seat in the House of which he is a member if (g) being a person whose election to the House was sponsored by

The move for another speaker in Kogi State House of Assembly is coming barely two months after the new speaker Prince Mathew Kolawole find his way to throne following voluntary resignation of the former speaker Umar Imam Ahmed which he described as resignation to save his life.