House Committees: PDP Insists Reps’ Leadership Frustrating Corruption Investigations

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday insisted that the halting of committee investigations by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, was to frustrate the ongoing corruption probes.

The PDP said the action was criminal, as it was a way to cover up members of the All Progressives Congress exposed by the probes.

The position of PDP followed the earlier reaction by the House in its defence that Gbajabiamila’s action was to allow lawmakers proceed on their annual vacation as had been the norm in all democracies.

The party had last week asked Gbajabiamila to step down as speaker of the House after he halted the committee sittings, accusing him of frustrating the investigations in order to cover up members of the APC.

A statement by the spokesman of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, on Monday, said no amount of threats or insults would make the party to jettison “its stance against the deliberate design to frustrate the legislative committees and put a wedge in the way of the fight against corruption.”

According to Ologbondiyan, the resort to insults by the APC House leadership, rather than addressing the issues, had confirmed the PDP’s position that corruption was fighting back from within the legislative and executive government circles of the APC administration.

He also said: “The PDP believes that when matters of national interest such as investigation of allegations of corruption are before the legislature, no attempt, overtly or covertly, should be made to undermine or sabotage them, let alone ordering a forceful shutdown of investigation.”

The PDP spokesman added: “Indeed, nothing in parliamentary rules makes its sacrosanct that legislative committees cannot sit during parliamentary recess.

“The attempt by APC leadership in the House to mislead Nigerians with skewed interpretations that suit its purpose of frustrating the fight against corruption is completely condemnable and amount to a huge disservice to Nigerians.”

Furthmore, he recalled that during the days of PDP’s leadership of both chambers of the National Assembly, even when the House of Representatives was on recess and crucial national issues such as the on-going investigations came up, the leadership would recall legislators and relevant committees to attend to them.

The main opposition party’s spokesman insisted that if the Gbajabiamila-led leadership was not sabotaging the basic responsibility of the Green Chambers, which was its oversight on the executive, the statement issued by the House Majority Leader, Alhassan Ado Doguwa, be retracted.

He further noted that Doguwa should apologise to Nigerians and allow the committees to continue their investigations without interference by the leadership of the House.