House Committees’ Reconstitution: How Govs, Godfathers Arm-twisted Bankole - Members Laud Spread Of Appointments

Wale Adele and Idowu Samuel - 11.10.2008

FACTS have started emerging that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Dimeji Bankole contended with stiff pressure from state governors and political godfathers of his colleagues in the choice of Chairmen for the House Committees whose reconstitution he announced on Thursday.

The House leadership had earlier indicated that it would make a sweeping reconstitution of the House Committees such that incompetent Committee Chairmen would be removed and replaced with more competent members as part of its drive towards propelling the House towards greater achievements.

However, the structure of the new composition revealed that aside the creation of new specialized Committees, some of the Committee chairmen targeted for change still retained their positions as it was apparent that the leadership only made efforts to neutralise opposition in the House by spreading the Chairmanship positions among more members.

Against this background, Saturday Tribune learnt that some state governors, mostly from the South-south, indeed intervened in the process of the selection through telephone calls to the Speaker as they entreated him to favour their candidates among the members. Some of the governors, it was learnt, spoke in person with the Speaker.

The governors involved, it was learnt, were personal or close friends of the Speaker and hence, were able to sway him in making specific choices on the Chairmanship of Committees after speaking familiarly with him on crucial issues.

What indeed prompted the intervention of the governors and the political godfathers of some lawmakers were the complaints by the lawmakers involved that they were being shortchanged in the consideration by the leadership for chairmanship distribution.

According to investigation, the lawmakers had time to lobby for Chairmanship positions in view of the long delay in the announcement of the composition of the committees since none of them was prepared to lose out in the process.

Meanwhile, many of the lawmakers have been reacting to the reconstitution of the committees, with all agreeing it was a step in the right direction to move the House farward and stabilise the polity.

Speaking with Saturday Tribune, the House committee Chairman on Rule and Business, Hon. Ita Enag, the Deputy Chairman on Petroleum, Down stream, Hon. Samuel Bamidele Aro and Hon. Dave Salajo, all commended the Speaker for his sense of balancing among the geo-political zones and among the political parties.

They all noted that with the development, the House would be able to settle down for serious business, with much co-operation coming the way of the leadership.

The Speaker, while announcing the new Committees, had defended the process of the selection, disclosing that only nine of former chairmen and their deputies were dropped, while the leadership had appointed 27 new Committee chairmen and deputies.

The list indicated that 70 members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) got committee chairmanship, while the leading opposition party (ANPP) recorded a 100 per cent gain having been favoured by seven Chairmanship Committees while the Action Congress (AC) got two Committees and Progressive Party Alliance, (PPA) got one Committee Chairmanship.

Addressing his colleagues after reading the new committee composition, Bankole beat his chest as he declared that the distribution of Committee headship was thorough and reflective of professionalism and ethnic balancing as it drew across party lines.

He announced that members were generally united in accepting the new composition of House Committees as, according to him, they all allowed national interest rather than a parochial one to govern their view on the initiative by the House leadership.