Posted by By JAMES OJO, Abuja on
The waiting game of suspense over the list of committee chairmen continued on Thursday in the House of Representatives, as the Speaker Oladimeji Bankole, refused to release the list.
…Adjournes plenary for another two weeks
The waiting game of suspense over the list of committee chairmen continued on Thursday in the House of Representatives, as the Speaker Oladimeji Bankole, refused to release the list.
Instead, the Speaker decided to adjourn plenary for another two weeks ahead of Sallah celebration. The House is to resume on October 9, 2008.
Daily Sun gathered that contrary to pronouncements in some quarters that the list of reconstituted committees of the House of Representatives was ready for announcement, the list was not ready, as some zonal caucus were said to be tinkering with their list.
Minority Leader, Hon. Mohammed Ali Ndume, confirmed that the list was far from being ready and would take some time because of the processes involved.
Ndume, representing Borno State in the House of Representatives, stated that it was only last Monday that the lists from all the zones were sent in, saying the technical committee was working on them to align the membership in line with what the House adopted as maximum number of members any committee should have.
What he confirmed was that only the committee membership was being sorted out and that work had not reached the level of who becomes committee chairman or deputy.
The task, he said was a bit difficult because the House was adopting a kind of mathematical approach to ensure an even distribution of members to various committees of the House, adding that the leadership was trying to avoid the kind of crisis that normally followed such exercise.
According to him, the number of committee had risen to about 80 and already, some errors were identified in the list submitted by the Selection Committee.
Ndume said this approach was being adopted so that should any member come up to raise objections, the leadership would be able to defend its position since everything possible had been done in order that no member was cheated out in terms of committee's position.
The two-week holiday, it was gathered, would be used to resolve all differences that had led to the delay in announcing the list.