Factional Speaker of Kogi State House of Assembly, Umar Imam, on Thurs¬day defiled the order of the House of Representatives and convened a plenary session. At the session, the crisis-ridden House resolved to sue
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Yakubu Dogara and the Chairman of the House Fact-finding Committee on the assembly crisis, Hon Paddy Iriase, for contempt over the lawmakers’ resolution to take over the state assembly functions.
Imam and his team accused the Deputy Governorship candidate of the All Progres-sives Congress (APC) in the November 21 election, James Faleke, of instigating the House of Representatives to stop their sitting.
This was despite the House of Representative’s directives on Wednesday that the prem¬ises of the assembly be sealed up.
At the plenary presided over by Imam as Speaker, the Majority Leader, Friday Sani, moved the motion under mat¬ter of urgent public importance that the “Legal representatives of the leaders of the House be mandated to file a contempt of court against the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chairman and Secretary of the purported Ad-hoc Committee of the House of Representa¬tives.”
Apart from this, he also moved that the House should set up a committee to further investigate the sponsors of the crisis and the members of the assembly that were involved in the alleged permanent incite¬ment to promote disharmony in the assembly.
“The House do reject in its entirety the decision of the House of Representatives con-sidering the provision of Sec¬tion 11(5) of the constitution”.
The lawmaker said the lower chamber of the National Assembly was wrong to have relied on a part of the consti¬tution for its acts, saying, “For the purpose of Sub-section 5, a House of Assembly shall not be deemed to be unable to per¬form its function so long as the House of Assembly can hold meetings and transact the as¬sembly businesses.
“This is in addition to the matter filed by the leadership of this House at the Federal High Court, Lokoja with suit no FHC/LKJ/CS/16/16 and for which notice was granted by the court dated 1st March 1 2015.
Sani said the action of the House of Representatives demonstrated special and vested interest, adding that the development was part of the plot of Faleke to bring down the government of Alhaji Ya¬haya Bello.