Caucus members of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the House of Representatives have asked the leadership of the party to rescind the suspension of the Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu and six others.
Minority principal officers, Elumelu, Toby Okechukwu, Gideon Gwani, and Adekoya Abdul-Majid as Leader, Deputy Minority Leader, Whip and Deputy Whip respectively as well as Wole Oke, Lynda Ikpeazu and Anayo Edwin were suspended last week for failing to turn up for a meeting following the announcement of the Minority leadership last Wednesday by Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila.
The caucus at a briefing Monday in Abuja however stated that if the suspension upheld, with the issues remaining unresolved the fortunes of the party in future are likely to be negatively affected.
While passing a vote of confidence on the Minority Leadership and Speaker Gbajabiamila, the caucus wondered why only seven of their members were affected while 111 were party to the selection that threw up Elumelu and the others as the Minority leaders.
Calling on party elders to intervene, the caucus also expressed believe that dialogue would be employed by the party leadership to resolve the issue amicably.
Flanked by others, Legor idagbo, (Cross River) said the caucus has resolved to work with party but it should be emphasized that since 1999, the Nigerian parliament has remained independent to date with no form of coercion from any quarters.
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The parliament since 99 to date remain independent and not coerced.
Idagbo also denied insinuation that members of the caucus were induced with N1m each to endorse the selection of Elumelu and others.
He said: “We call on the National Working Committee (NWC) of our party to rescind its decision of suspending the Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu and six others, who through no fault of theirs were nominated and elected by majority of members of minority parties.
“Were an offense to have been committed in this process, the perpetrators would be all 111 of us and not seven members as were suspended by our great party.
“We, the minority parties hereby pass vote of confidence on the newly constituted minority Leadership because our decision to constitute the Minority Leadership of the 9th House of Representatives is in consonance with the House Standing Order, that is, Order 7, Rule 8 which is derivative of Section 60 of the 1999 constitution as amended.
“We stand by our decision. We stand by our leaders.
“We use this opportunity to sue for peace and to state that we are available for further discussions with the NWC of our party on how to resolve these issues and move our party forward
“We call on well-meaning party leaders, particularly those with legislative experience to intervene in our behalf in order for this matter to be laid to rest so as not to affect the fortunes of our party in future”.
On the issue of monetary inducement, he said, “I have no information about and I speak on good authority, I don’t think N1m can induce any member in the National Assembly. And I’m sure that’s an insult to members of the National Assembly, if you had said N1b now, I would have started asking question,” he added.
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