Reps minority caucus walks out of plenary over Tinubu’s state police bill

The Minority Caucus in the House of Representatives on Thursday staged a walkout from the chamber in protest over the passage of the constitutional amendment bill seeking to establish state police. 

The lawmakers accused the House leadership of violating constitutional provisions and the chamber’s Standing Orders.

Briefing newsmen after leaving the chamber, the Minority Leader, Fredrick Agbedi, alongside other caucus leaders, insisted that their action was not borne out of opposition to state police but against what they described as the abuse of parliamentary procedures.

Speaking on behalf of the caucus, Agbedi said the Speaker, while presiding as Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, ignored clear constitutional requirements governing the alteration of the Constitution.

He argued that attendance in the House is determined through members’ registers signed on each legislative day and not by names read out during proceedings.

“The Constitution is the grand norm. It is the rule book from which even our Standing Orders derive their powers. For the Speaker, acting as Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, to disregard the clear provisions of Section 9(2) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, is a great affront to the workings of the House of Representatives,” he said.

The caucus maintained that constitutional amendment bills must be considered clause by clause, with each provision supported by a two-thirds majority of members as stipulated in both the Constitution and the House Standing Orders.

Quoting Order 13 Rule 15(a) of the House Rules, the lawmakers said, “In the clause-by-clause consideration in the Committee of the Whole, a clause shall be deemed passed only if supported by a positive vote of two-thirds majority of members of the House.”

They faulted the decision to merely read the long title of the bill and determine its passage through a voice vote without detailed consideration of each clause.

“We are not against the creation of state police,” the caucus stressed. “Whatever will help address insecurity in Nigeria, we are prepared to support. But every action taken by Parliament must follow due process.”

According to the lawmakers, they had earlier met with the Speaker and discussed proposed amendments to the bill, with the Speaker reportedly acknowledging areas where changes could be accommodated.

“Mr. Speaker even identified areas where we could intervene, but when he sat as Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, he simply read the long title and put the question through a voice vote. That is absurd,” they said.

The Minority Caucus warned that failure to comply with constitutional procedures undermines the credibility of the National Assembly and Nigeria’s democratic institutions.

“When the rules and regulations are not complied with, it affects the credibility of the institution as well as the credibility of Nigeria and our democracy,” the lawmakers said.

During plenary, no fewer than 311 members of the House of Representatives voted in support of the executive bill seeking to create state police.

According to Speaker Abbas Tajudeen, 35 lawmakers voted virtually while the remaining 276 were physically on ground during the voting.

This followed the consideration and adoption of the report of the House Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution, chaired by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu at plenary.

𝕤𝕖𝕖 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖/𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕔𝕙 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕧𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕠 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖