Yusuf Gagdi (APC-Plateau), a member of the G-7, says his group remains unruffled despite a change in the House of Representatives rules that now allows open ballot voting.

Mr Gagdi, the House Committee on Navy chairman, said this while speaking with journalists in Abuja.

Last week, Peoples Gazette reported that lawmakers threatened to impeach Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, accusing him of forging the house’s standing rules in favour of Tajudeen Abass as his successor.

The lawmakers alleged that Mr Gbajabiamila falsified the clause on the procedure for electing the speaker and his deputy in the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives (10th edition), with the doctored document stating that presiding officers will be elected through an open ballot. 

The existing rule requires voting via a secret ballot.

However, Mr Gagdi said the new rule would not deter the G-7 legislators. The G7 are a group of aspirants for the 10th National Assembly speaker, opposed to Mr Abass, the anointed APC candidate.

Members of the group are Ahmed Wase, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, Sada Soli, Sani Jaji, Miriam Onuhoa, Aliyu Betara and Mr Gagdi.

“Look at the composition of the house: the opposition has 182 put together, while the ruling APC has 178, in the circumstances, the comfortable majority we do not have as the ruling party,” Mr Gagdi explained. 

He added, “You think the 182 will not be scared of their governors and leaders who already gave them instruction regarding who becomes the speaker.”

The lawmaker stated that the consequences of the open ballot would affect all groups, adding that with this, the G-7 would be good to go in whatever way the house wanted to approach the election.

A former clerk of the House, Gani Ojagbohunmi, said voting during the election of the two presiding officers of the Senate and Reps was usually through secret ballot.

Mr Ojagbohunmi stated this during the presentation of a paper titled ‘Opening of a new Parliament: The Case of National Assembly at the Induction of New Members-elect’.

“Voting is usually by secret ballot. After the result has been collated, they are handed over to the clerk of that house, who shall submit the result of the division to the clerk to the National Assembly,” he said.

(NAN)