Dr. Ali Ahmad chairs the House of Representatives Committee on Judiciary. Below are excepts from his interview where he commented on the controversial removal of the leadership of Kogi State House of Assembly.
Kogi problem is a very big problem. Few days when the incident happened, the House took a proactive step. In Nigeria, it is very strange to us. We usually wait until the last minute as we saw during the Bakassi era. But in the case of this one we said, no, the House, as long as we are empowered by the constitution, would do whatever it can at the right time. Of course, some people were saying, “No, it is not yet a problem”, but we shouldn’t wait until it becomes a problem.
When we were in Kogi, one faction said they would hold session, the other faction said they would hold session, it beacame an issue. So, if we allow that, there would be fracas, shooting and in extreme cases death. So, in order to forestall that, we went agead and did what we did. And constitutionally, we are empowered to make laws for Kogi State if the Assembly could not work.
So, for us to start making laws, we said, “let us go there and see what is happening”. I won’t preempt our report, we’ve been there, we have gone there. But of course, Kogi State is a looming danger and it shows how people look at governance. A lot of good things that would have happened are being scuttled because of the perception people have of governance. In the house, the constitution amendment on prison reform, state police were killed.
Everybody knows this about the prison and the police. When you come back to governors, what happened was the best thing. Nobody trusts them with the way they exercise raw power, that was the only reason those bills didn’t pass through the House.
So, the same thing, you cannot let governors sack speakers the way they want. If you do that, then we are not doing justice to our constitution. All these things have to be measured. And after submitting our report, we have Speakers’ Forum; we have Governors’ Forum to support the House.
The report will be submitted soon. We will explain our findings and whoever is at fault, the House has the power enshrined in the constitution and that is what will happen.
Extracts from an Interview with Leadership Newspapers
