Plenary at the House of Representatives turned rowdy on Wednesday.
Trouble started after Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, ignored a list by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in which Kingsley Chinda was nominated as the Minority Leader of the House.
He rather chose to use another list submitted by lawmakers from all the other opposition parties in the house.
Subsequently, Ndudi Elumelu was announced as the Minority Leader – a situation that led to protests as some aggrieved lawmakers attempted to take the maze.
They said they would not accept a situation where the majority in the house would impose a minority leader on members.
Reacting, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rejected the attempt by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, to impose leaders of the House of Representatives.
The PDP, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said it had duly written to the Speaker of the House after consultations with other minority members, notifying him of members that had been selected for leadership positions in line with dictates of the rules and parliamentary practice.
“However, to our utter dismay, the PDP had discovered that the Speaker attempted to smuggle in names other than those recognized and forwarded to him as the leaders of the Minority in the House of Representatives.”
“The PDP, in the strongest terms, cautions against this abuse of rules, parliamentary practices and procedures as well as the convention and we urge the Speaker to respect the rules and read the list submitted to him by the leadership of the PDP,” the opposition party said.
