The Kogi State House of Assembly resumed sitting on March 10 2016 and mandated its legal representatives to file a contempt of court case against the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Yabuku Dogara, the Chairman and Secretary of the 10-man House Committee that claimed to have investigated the wranglings in the Kogi House of Assembly.
This is coming against the backdrop that the lower chamber of the national assembly had ordered the sealing-off of the Kogi State Assembly complex, which it had claimed to have taken over its functions due to the internal dispute that has divided members into two factions.
The House also constituted a committee to further investigate sponsors of the crises as well as honourable members involved in the incitement to promote disharmony.
The House, in its resolution, also rejected in its entirety the decision of the Federal House of Assembly to take over their functions, hinging their position on the provision of Section 11 (5) of the Nigerian Constitution.
The Majority Leader, Hon. Friday Sani, had earlier moved the motion for which the resolutions were arrived at.
The Speaker, Rt. Hon. Umar Ahmed Imam, who presided over the sitting of 10 members out of 23, drew the attention of the House of Representatives to the fact that the issues concerning the legality or otherwise of the impeachment of the former speaker were before the Federal High Court for determination, adding that, the National Assembly went ahead despite a court injunction.
“It is of concern to this Assembly that the House of Representatives should act in flagrant disobedience to the Federal High Court that restrained them from interfering by seeking the appearance of same before it in the determination of such matter as to competence of the House of Representatives to so interfere in the functions of the State Assembly,” he said
“The continued action of the House of Representatives, despite the court injunction, is not only prejudicial but, abuse of court process and in fact, insult on the preferred rule of law.”
The Speaker also questioned House of Representatives other extraneous interest in the dispatch with which it intervened without making efforts to exhaust the need for employing internal leadership resolution mechanism.
He said for the House of Representatives to have gone ahead in passing a resolution to take over the House without fulfilling the constitutional provisions of section11(4) and (5) is regrettable.
Imam queried the intellectual abilities of the House of Representatives that could not properly interpret section 11(4) and(5) of the constitution. He said what the section meant was if there was crises in the State that makes it impossible for the House to sit not when there is an internal wrangling within the House.
According to him, the Kogi State House of Assembly was in session, adding that it met and officially transacted its legislative business at both plenary sitting and at the committee meeting.
“I therefore call on the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to discountenance the concurrence sought by the House of Representatives and direct same to re-examine the prevailing situation dispassionately with a view to finding lasting solution to the situation,” Rt. Hon. Imam stated.
The House, however, refused to allow the issue to obscure its sense of sympathy from paying tributes to their departed brother, the late Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Barrister James Ocholi. They described his death as a great loss to the State and Nigeria at large.
It would be recalled that some members of the House of Assembly had impeached the former Speaker, Hon. Momoh Jimoh Lawal who relocated to Abuja with about fourteen of his loyalists.
The faction of the embattled speaker has been depleted as some of his members have joined the Umar Ahmed Imam camp making their camp to be beefed up to ten members.
