Confusion as APC lawmakers plot to take over leadership of Plateau Assembly

By Kingsley Chukwuka

A crisis is currently looming at the Plateau State House of Assembly as the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state wants to assert its majority in the House to claim the Speakership of the House.

The House of Assembly comprises 24 elected members from different constituencies. APC has the majority seats in the House with 22, while the Labour Party (LP) and the Young Peoples Party (YPP) have one seat each. The ruling party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which produced the governor, does not have a single seat in the House.

All the PDP candidates to the House were disqualified by the Appeal Tribunal which was also upheld by the Court of Appeal which sealed it completely. That was the extent to which they could go legally.

According to the Court of Appeal, all the candidates fielded by the PDP were not validly nominated because the party did not have structures on the ground.

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PDP insisted that the party structure and other related matters are pre-election issues.

The issue of the minority party, YPP, producing the Speaker, Right Honourable Gabriel Dewan, came to the fore yesterday by the APC state chairman, Hon. Rufus Bature who declared that the Assembly Speaker should be an APC member.

According to him, that is the position of the 1999 constitution (as amended) because APC has an overwhelming majority in the House; the development he said is enough to produce the Speaker.

Bature said that the Assembly issues are a complicated one because the intricacies involved started right from the outset.

“APC members were sworn in in batches and I don’t think that that hangover has left them. However, as a party, we feel that the House and PDP should do the needful by making the Speaker an APC member because in a democracy the majority will always be there,” he stressed.

He added, “We are still hoping that the members of the APC in the house will do the needful. As chairman, I have spoken to them to do what they are supposed to do because we don’t want a situation where we will put the House of Assembly on fire.

“But, as far as I am concerned, the House of Assembly is not properly constituted because of the position of the leadership.”

The chairman contended that the APC in the state is alive and waxing stronger, pointing out that the last local government elections are a testament that the party is still in the hearts of the electorate.

“If the results were truly announced by the Plateau State Independent Electoral Commission (PLASIEC), the APC won 10 local governments. But as you know, it has become a tradition in Nigeria where the ruling party takes it all.

“This act is not peculiar to Plateau, It is a nationwide phenomenon which is a wrong practice. It is not good for democracy. But as I said earlier, if the true results of the LGA elections were announced, it would have been clear that the APC is alive on the Plateau.

“I am sure that the PDP is aware that come 2026 in the next LGA elections, there will be a short down at the polls as a prelude to 2027.”

In his reaction, the PDP condemned APC’s call to remove the Plateau Speaker, warning against undermining state stability.

A statement by the Secretary of the party, Emmanuel Tuang, said that PDP expressed its profound concern and unequivocal condemnation regarding the call by the APC chairman for the removal of the Speaker.

Tuang added that the call is not only unfounded but poses a significant threat to the hard-earned stability and progress that the state has achieved in recent years.