Aminu Tambuwal, House of Representatives Speaker yesterday left his seat for his deputy Ihedioha.
Tambuwal, now governor elect of Sokoto State, will be sworn in on Friday. Tambuwal said yesterday that there would be no vacuum even though there was no mention of steps to be taken in the constitution in the occurrence of such development.
The Speaker told reporters that the House, at an executive session creatively resolved the issue.
He said Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha will act as the Speaker though in his position as the Deputy Speaker. The current Seventh Assembly expires on June 6.
Tambuwal announced that a motion will come up to suspend Order II Rule 9 which insists that a new Speaker must be elected if there is vacancy in the office of the Speaker.
The Order reads: “Whenever a vacancy has occurred in the office of the Speaker or Deputy Speaker during a session, the Clerk shall report same to the House at its next sitting and the House shall either forthwith or at its next sitting, proceed to the election of a new Speaker in the manner herein before provided”.
He said: “I would cease by the grace of God, to be a member of the House of Representatives by May 29th, which means I would cease to be Speaker.
“Therefore, there is going to be a vacuum. The constitution never envisaged this situation so there is no provision to address the situation.
“But incidentally, in the House rules, we have a provision where it is envisaged that there may come a day that the (position of) Honourabe Speaker or the Deputy Speaker becomes vacant because we are all mortals.
“And the prescription is that at the next sitting the House shall elect a new speaker, at the next sitting the Clerk shall notify the House of the vacancy and a new Speaker should be elected.
“But somehow, some of our colleagues, one of them to be honest, came up with what may become, not a doctrine of necessity, but an ingenious solution to the situation.
“Instead of the House to go through the process of saying we’re electing a new Speaker, since it is our own rules, we’ll come up with a motion suspending that particular part of the rules which will allow the Deputy Speaker to continue in his capacity as Deputy Speaker and continue to preside and conduct the affairs of the House, maybe tomorrow (today), Thursday and if need be, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday before the lifespan of the House comes to an end.”
According to him, he was clearing the air on the issue to stem any misconception adding that the solution does not go against the law of the country and that the scenario shows that nobody is indispensable and that no one is trying to shut down the House.
