Tag: Gbajabiamila

Majority Leader of the House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamila has described as scary, facts which led to the removal of subsidy and eventual increase in the pump price of petrol.

Gbajabiamila said: “I was at the stakeholders meeting with the Vice President and other stakeholders on Wednesday before the decision was made.

“The story that was painted, the details, the breakdown and the facts were scary. From what I read and saw, if we had continued the way we were, we may not even have a country in two months.

“Salaries would not have been paid by any state. Faced with that, it puts me in a very difficult situation and serious dilemma as to which way to go. I have always fought against subsidy removal but now, I am confronted with scary details as to if they don’t deregulate.

“The consequences will be very bad for me and you and it is like being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

He, however, said the Federal Government should have established refineries before removing the subsidy.

His words: “I believe that if God has given you natural product, the least you should do is to allow the people benefit from it. If subsidy is being abused, all we need do is to block the holes of abuse and not to punish the whole of Nigerians for the abuse of a few people.

“But having said that, I have always argued as to why we can’t build refineries before removing the subsidy. It is only in Nigeria that subsidy is given a bad name.

“There is subsidy all over the world, in America agriculture is subsidised and in UK, transportation is subsidised. It is only in Nigeria that they say subsidy is bad. So, why is it not bad in other countries? That’s what we need to look at.”

The Majority Leader also said in order to cushion the effects of the removal, there was need to review the minimum wage to help workers meet the rising cost of living.

“There has to be a serious review of the minimum wage if you are going to increase the price of petrol because we all know everything rests on that.

“Prices are going to skyrocket, from school fees to food, transportation, uniforms and books; everything will go up because of mono-economy. If we are going to do that, it is incumbent upon the government to take seriously the demands of labour.

“Minimum wage needs to be reviewed; we cannot increase the cost of living and keep salaries where it is, they go hand in hand.”

•’Fayose’s letter amounts to sabotage’

House of Representatives Majority leader Femi Gbajabiamila has described Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose as a meddlesome interloper following the letter he wrote to Chinese President Xi Jinping on the alleged $6 billion loan sought by Nigeria from China.

In a letter to the Chinese leader yesterday, Gbajabiamila said Fayose ignorantly overreached himself and wilfully breached the constitution by failing to defend the oath he swore to.

The House leader, who said members of the lower chamber were worried by the flagrant abuse of office by Fayose, however, asked the Chinese leader to ignore him as he showed lack of understanding of the workings of the federal system of government.

It reads: “My attention has been drawn to a letter written to you by a governor of one of the states of in Nigerian, wherein the governor purported to speak on behalf of the Nigerian people, describing himself as a stakeholder in the Nigerian ‘project’.

“Ordinarily, I would not join issues with the governor but as the leader of the House of Representatives, I am saddled with the responsibility of driving government business and policies in the House.

“It is, therefore, incumbent upon me to set the records straight, though I am sure the letter written to you by the governor will probably receive little (if any) attention from your high office, assuming it even gets to you.

“Mr. President, Nigeria as you well-know is not a project as erroneously described by the governor, but a nation as all others in the comity of nations. It is also a federal republic operating under the principles of administrative and fiscal federalism.

“As such, as most democracies with a federal structure, Nigeria operates a three-tier government and adheres to the principle of separation of powers, which is both vertical and horizontal.  Horizontal between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches and vertical between the federal, state and local governments.

“To this extent, it is a clear affront on our constitution and ultra vires his mandate for a governor of a federating state to delve into any matter outside his state, particularly as it concerns international agreements between two sovereign nations.”

The letter added: “Therefore a governor who overreaches himself and acts outside his constitutional mandate can at best be described legally as a meddlesome interloper…

“Finally Mr. President, yes we are a democratic nation and yes citizens do have a right to freedom of expression (though not absolute), however this letter to you by an opposition governor is a new low in opposition politics.”

“What the state governor has done amounts to attempted economic sabotage and subversion. I ask, therefore, that you excuse the vituperations and exuberance of the governor as just that,” it said.

THE House of Representatives sponsored 327 bills in the first six months as against 132 presented by the Seventh House within the same period under review, House Leader Femi Gbajabiamila said yesterday.

He explained that 264 of the bills have passed through first reading and awaiting second reading, adding that 40 have been referred to committees for further scrutiny.

Gbajabiamila, who addressed reporters in Lagos on the activities of the House, said the bills and resolutions passed were to address issues of insecurity,  unemployment, economic reform, reform in the oil and gas sector of the economy among others.

On the rationale behind the presentation of 130 bills for first reading in a day, the House Leader explained: “Our Legislature is presently confronted with so many defective and obsolete provisions in our law.

“What the current House has done is to put its members and the National Institute for Legislative Studies to work and in the course of reviewing existing laws, discovered provisions in our laws that had become obsolete both in language, spirit and effect.

“The institute, therefore, recommended these bills for amendments and repeals. It was an all encompassing exercise targeted at flushing out irrelevant and obsolete provisions from our laws. This step has been applauded by experts and it is the resolve of the House to continue to process these bills until they become law.”

According to him, the House has resolved to investigate so many issues that affect the development of the economy. The investigations, he said, cut across the economic and social spectrum from power to education to Lake Chad to banking.

Gbajabiamila promised that the House would in the coming year and upon resumption, pursue its oversight responsibilities so as to plug leakages and make government more efficient and effective in delivering its socio-economic contract with the people.

“The National Assembly must accept major responsibility for the profligacy that took place in the past and we intended as a House to redress this national embarrassment,” he added.

House of Representatives’ Majority Leader Femi Gbajabiamila has emphasised that the lower chamber will back zero budget for next year’s Federal appropriations.

Speaking with State House correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, he said ministries, departments and agencies (MDA) would have to justify every money they want to spend in next year’s budget.

Gbajabiamila explained that zero budgeting was part of the Federal Government’s efforts to block leakages, adding that the House was in full support.

On the visit, he said: “This is just a routine visit to Mr. President. One arm of government visiting another. You know the important role of the House; I being in charge of Government Business in the House.

“We discussed the issue of budget and a few other housekeeping matters to further cement the relationship between the House and the President.”

On zero budgeting, he said: “Absolutely, we understand the logic. Unlike the envelop budget system, which had issues under the best circumstances. We will support zero budget, where everything starts from scratch. They have to justify every penny. It’s part of the government efforts to block leakages and the House is in firm support.”

The House Leader said the All Progressives Congress (APC) was not responsible for the travail of Senate President Bukola Saraki at the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

The Senate President’s matter, he said, was a judicial issue being handled appropriately by Saraki’s legal team.

He dismissed media reports claiming existence of leadership crisis in the National Assembly.

On political solution to resolve the matter, he said: “I can’t comment and promote things that are unsubstantiated. You know the problem is a constitutional and legal problem and I don’t know how you can treat constitutional legal problem politically. If that be the case, perhaps I may not know.”

He was optimistic that the constitution of membership of House committees would not cause any crisis as the exercise would be properly handled by its leadership.

THE National Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Ikeja, Lagos, has fixed September 29 for judgment in a petition by the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate for Surulere Federal Constituency I, Mr. Tony Ashikodi.

He challenged the declaration of Dr. Olufemi Gbajabiamila of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as winner of the March 28, 2015 election.

 The three-man tribunal, led by Justice C.U. Anwuka, fixed the date yesterday after listening to the submissions and adoption of written addresses by counsel to the parties.

Ashokodi petitioned the tribunal through his counsel, Kalu Onuah, alleging irregularities in the election.

He said the irregularities breached the provisions of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) approved guidelines for the polls.

At the resumed hearing of his petition yesterday, counsel to the petitioner said Gbajabiamila was not duly elected or returned by the majority of lawful votes cast at the election in the constituency.

He prayed the court to void the election due to alleged manifest breach and violation of the Electoral Act 2015 Guidelines.

The PDP candidate urged the court to order that a fresh election be conducted by the INEC.

The petitioner claimed that “the final figures in the tally of results in the Form EC 8C (i) were cancelled and altered by the second respondents with a view of declaring the first respondent the winner of the election. The 14,351 received by the first respondent/ APC was whimsically changed to 21,715 while 16,079 earlier recorded for the petitioner was changed to 14,550”.

Making his submission, Onuah relied on Section 53(2), which provides that “where the votes cast at an election in any polling unit exceeded the number of registered voters in that polling unit, the result of the election for that polling unit shall be declared null and void by the commission and another election may be conducted at a date to be fixed by the commission, where the result at the polling unit may affect the overall result in the constituency.”

He further cited Section 63, 71 and 74 of the Act, which states that the form shall be signed and stamped by the presiding officer and counter signed by the candidates or their polling agents, where available at the polling unit.

Omotayo Olatunbosun, who represented the first respondent, submitted that the petitioner’s argument was based on misconception of the law and a misrepresentation of facts.

“The documents were actually dumped on the tribunal without any witness demonstrating the specific purposes each document was meant to serve. It is on record that none of the documents tendered was linked with specifically in open court to the allegations in the petitions nor to specific paragraphs of the petition.

“The only witness called by the petitioner himself. His testimony constitutes, at best, documentary hearsay. All he said about the occurrence of the event in issue is that he briefly visited the ward collation centres. There was no attempt on the part of the petitioner to call persons, who actually witnessed the alleged events of alterations, cancelations, manipulations and falsifications,” he submitted.

T.N. Olaitan, who represented the second respondent, aligned himself with the submission of the counsel to the first respondent.