Tambuwal
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Tambuwal, has dismissed request by the presidency and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that he should vacate his office for defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC), saying the request was anchored on the erroneous belief that the party was instrumental to his emergence as speaker.
Tambuwal, who disclosed this in an interview with the Voice of America (VOA) monitored in Kaduna yesterday, explained that although he was a PDP member at the time he emerged the Speaker due to the support he got from the opposition lawmakers and other Nigerians, it was clear that his erstwhile party was rooting for someone else to occupy the position.
Hear the Speaker, “The mistake people are making is by saying the PDP made me the speaker. The PDP candidate was Hon Mulikat Akande-Adeola. Although I was in PDP at that time, I was not the party’s candidate. It was legislators of other parties and other Nigerians that presented me as a candidate. And I contested and won.”
While distancing his defection to the APC from the blockade carried out in the National Assembly premises by security operatives, Tambuwal said: “People should not forget that the powers that be wanted to arrest me even on June 6, 2011, when the House was inaugurated. So, the crisis is not about my defection but it was brought out by those who think that only they can do and undo.”
The gubernatorial candidate of the APC in Sokoto State disclosed that the policemen that prevented him and fellow legislators from entering the National Assembly and subsequently throwing tear gas canisters at them were not the regular ones deployed to guard the parliament, saying, “the policemen that were deployed on that day were not those that used to work with us.
“They were new people who were brought in to do what they did on that day. That was when the real motive came out; contrary to the explanation that the police deployed their personnel because of security reports that thugs will storm the National Assembly, the deployment was aimed at stopping me from entering the House chambers and presiding over the day’s proceedings,” he stated.
While faulting the arguments that if the policemen acted illegally by throwing tear gas at the legislators, the lawmakers were also wrong to have jumped the fence to gain entry into the National Assembly, the Speaker said, “A man does not forcibly enter his own house. If there is a thief inside or someone who intends to hurt your family is in your house, even if he is in uniform and you did not authorise him to enter, what do you do? The lawmakers committed no offence.”
Tambuwal has been on a running battle with the ruling party and the presidency after he defected to the APC on October 28. The PDP, in line with its zoning policy, had zoned the position of the Speaker to the South-West, while the North-East was to produce the deputy speaker. However, some PDP members, encouraged by lawmakers from the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) ganged up and violated the PDP zoning arrangement by voting in Tambuwal, from the North-West, to become the Speaker, while Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, from the South-East, emerged the deputy.
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