Abia Assembly Speaker Suspends Plenary Over Leadership Crisis

The Speaker Abia State House of Assembly on Tuesday suspended plenary over a disagreement on the election of the principal officers of the House.

The crisis started after the Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Emmanuel Ihuoma Emeruwa, recognized Hon. Uchenna Okoro, the member representing Arochukwu State Constituency, as the leader of the House.

Hon. Solomon Akpuluno, the member representing Obingwa East State Constituency in a swift response raised a point of order, kicking against the declaration of Hon Okoro as Majority Leader of the 8th Assembly and urged him to read a letter written to him by the leadership of the People’s Democratic Party in the State.

Following the comments, all members of the 8th Assembly elected under the platform of the PDP stood up and urged the speaker to read the letter as submitted by the party.

The speaker in his response told the agitating members that the letter had been overtaken by events and no one would tell him how to run the assembly.

Following the disagreement, the speaker abruptly suspended plenary and left the floor of the House.

The 8th assembly has been engulfed in crisis over those to occupy the positions of principal officers of the House for the past one week.

The assembly is dominated by the PDP which has 11 members while the ruling party in the state– the Labour Party– has 10 members.

The YPP has 2 members while the All Progressive Congress, APC , has only one member.

Hon Okoro, who was elected as Majority Leader, is of the LP.