The action of the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, in his arbitrary imposition of Mr. Ndu Elumelu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the Minority Leader of the Federal House of Representatives is in total, flagrant and unambiguous violation of established convention and ethical codes regarding the mode of selection of the leaders of the caucuses of political parties in the parliament, says a civil rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA).

According to the group, “his unconstitutional imposition of a leader on the PDP is absolutely condemnable and is an attempt at destroying the fundamentals of our constitutional democracy.

“The attempt of the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives to impose a leadership for the minority party in the parliament is unconstitutional, is illegal, is an attempted coup and it must be resisted by every possible means because it is an action that if not corrected will destroy the fundamentals of our constitutional democracy.

“In every constitutional democracy, the party caucuses in the parliaments are decided by the hierarchies of the respective political parties. If PDP is the minority party in the parliament, it is the PDP national leadership that will select their leaders in the parliament in line with the party’s constitution. It is not for the speaker of the parliament who is not a member of the PDP to suo motto select the leadership of the PDP in that parliament. It is like a student who has been asked to write his bachelor degree and he's being asked to mark his bachelor degree, the student will definitely produce a first class for himself.

“What the Speaker of the Federal Parliament is trying to do is to institute a one party parliament which must be resisted. This violation by Gbajabiamila should not be taken as just an offense to PDP but an offense against the constitutional democracy that every Nigerian should speak out that is why HURIWA is speaking out. We don’t belong to PDP or APC.

“The election of Gbajabiamila is even fundamentally tainted because the process that led to his election violated the norms that are involved for selecting the speaker of the parliament because people who took part in the election were seen taking photographs of their ballot papers and there was a claim that if you don’t take the photograph, which is an evidence to collect money after voting. Gbajabiamila’s election was against the parliamentary code of conduct on how election should be conducted. Here he is trying to foist an unpopular minority leader on PDP so he can have his way as a tyrant.

“The earlier the security institutions are activated to stop this malfeasance the better for Nigeria because this act is going to lead to a total collapse of the Federal House of Representatives.”

HURIWA called on all pro-democracy groups in Nigeria, irrespective of their political affiliations, to speak up and if possible, organise nation-wide protests to make sure that Gbajabiamila doesn’t set up a puppet kind of parliament to become a stooge of the executive arm of government. This is a call to salvage our democracy from the hands of emerging dictatorship.

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