The five suspended members of the Kano State Assembly have described the decision of the house to suspend them as a breach of law and a child’s play.
Recall that the House presided over the Speaker, Abdulazeez Garba Gafasa had earlier on Monday morning announced the suspension of the lawmakers over alleged misconduct and violation of the rules of the house.
A member representing Rimingado-Tofa Constituency, Mohammed Bello who spoke to newsmen on Monday evening and on behalf of others suspended, said the action of the House was illegal. According to him, “We were at home preparing to come to the Assembly for our usual plenary session when we heard that the leadership of the House with some few members have suspended us for six working months.
“He, therefore, raised a point of order, which he was denied the right to talk about. He has the right to be allowed to raise the point of order, left to the Assembly to consider what he was going to say or not.
“Order 2, rule 3d gives him the right to raise such a point of order, but he was refused, which led the House into a rowdy session on that Monday.
“Secondly, if a member of the Assembly does something wrong, and the House wants to suspend him, his offence must be clearly read and presented to the committee of the House on Ethics and Privileges to call him to defend himself.
“After that, if the committee is not satisfied with his explanation, then the committee presents its reports to the House, and no member can be suspended with the adoption of the report by the two-third members of the assembly.
“All such processes were not followed by the assembly, stressing the Speaker has no right to make such an announcement, which he said is against the constitution and the rule of the House.
“No letter regarding the suspension was issued to us. So we are patiently waiting for that before taking any necessary action on the issue,” Bello stated. However, it was reliably gathered that of the five suspended, three were from the ruling party, All Progressive Congress, APC while two were from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
“The Assembly and its members are guided by the Nigerian Constitution and the rule of the House. Therefore, I want to assure you that none of the two gives them the right or power to do what they did. “What actually brought about this was that during our plenary session last week Monday, one of our colleagues sensed a move by the House to go against the rule of the House.
Source: Vanguard
