Hon. Muazu Gangara, who was reported to have
been forced out of office as Speaker of the
Kaduna State House of Assembly yesterday by
18 of its 34 members loyal to Governor Mukhtar
Ramalan Yero, insists he is the substantive
Speaker and will challenge the issue in court.
Gangara spoke at a press conference in
Kaduna last night, surrounded by 15 loyal
members that included his deputy, Dr. Dogara
Mato, as well as the Majority and Minority
Leaders, Hon. David Umar and Dr. Shehu Usman
Danfulani.
He described as “illegitimate” the action of the
18, led by Philemon Usman and Jerry Kantiok, by
which they claimed to have impeached him and
replaced him with Shehu Usman Tahir and Hon.
Peter Adamu as Deputy Speaker, stressing the
sitting did not enjoy the required quorum of 22
members.
“The purported sitting by some members of the
Kaduna state House of Assembly is a nullity,” he
said. “Section 92 of the Constitution said no
impeachment can take place until two-third of
the elected members of the House are
present, which have to be 22 out of the 34
members. They did not reach two-third of the
membership of the House. The House has since
suspended its sitting until further notice and it
cannot reconvene without the permission of the
chairman, Business and Rules Committee, which
they did not get. The mace they used was
brought out of the museum for the exercise. It
was not the mace in use by the House. We
must respect the constitution of the country.
The alternative is that we are heading to court
to challenge the impeachment. We are going
to follow it through in the court of law.”
SaharaReporters also gathered that supporters
of Governor Mukhtar Ramalan Yero, despite
absolving the governor of responsibility for the
impeachment effort, cannot prove his non-
partisanship in the crisis that is rocking the
House.
We understand that the clerk of the Assembly
was acting upon the instructions of the governor
to enable the 18 lawmakers to impeach the
substantive speaker despite their inability to
form a quorum.
It has unfolded that the 18 members who
“impeached” the principal officers of the
Assembly settled for a sum of money with the
governor, some of which has been paid to them.
Security agencies are also said to have been
compromised in the state to side with the “new
Speaker.”
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