Posted by From JAMES OJO, Abuja. on
Nigeria's first female Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mrs. Patricia Olubunmi Etteh, is ill. She has been out of the country after her ouster last October. Spokesman of the House, Hon Ezuiche Ubani, in his weekly briefing yesterday, confirmed Etteh's illness, but did not disclosed what her ailment is.
Nigeria's first female Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mrs. Patricia Olubunmi Etteh, is ill. She has been out of the country after her ouster last October. Spokesman of the House, Hon Ezuiche Ubani, in his weekly briefing yesterday, confirmed Etteh's illness, but did not disclosed what her ailment is.
Ubani, who made spirited efforts to distance the former speaker from the ripples over the removal of the chairman of Appropriation Committee, Hon Festus Adegoke, said that people should stop dropping the woman's name.
Speaker of the House, Hon. Dimeji Bankole Adegoke, last week, replace Adegoke with Hon Ayo Adeseun before traveling out of the country for parliamentary engagements in Zambia.
Adegoke had, in a statement, threatened to spill the beans on what members did with the 2008 budget.
Reacting to the threat, Ubani said that the leadership of the House reserved the rights to appoint any member as committee chairman and could remove the member at any time.
'Anybody holding chairmanship position in this House is at the discretion of the leadership. If the leadership says you should no longer hold it, so be it," he said.
On insinuation that Adegoke was removed because of his closeness to the former speaker, Ubani denied this.
He said: 'Some people say they are pro-Etteh, but did not even vote for her candidate. They should allow the woman to rest. I don't think she is plotting against anybody. More so, Etteh has been ill.
'So don't go and hide under the woman's name, who has since move on with life. I hope it will get to a level where a member will have headache and say it is Etteh."
Ubani admitted that the House ran into problems over the 2008 budget because of the way the Appropriation Committee handled matters.
According to him, there was nothing wrong with members asking that projects in their constituencies be included in the budget, adding that improving the lot of the people in their constituencies was the main reasons they were elected as representatives.
He defended the bill that tends to promote internal democracy within political parties as a sure banker to a robust representation at all level of governance.
Ubani said the syndrome of godfatherism made some constituencies not to have representatives in the National Assembly due to litigations over nomination and other sundry issues.