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BREAKING: Reps Vow To Hear Motion For Pantami’s Resignation

Published

4 years ago

Apr 23, 2021.

The House of Representatives has promised to hear the motion of Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu, over the call for the resignation of the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami.
Kalu debunked the media reports that Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila blocked Elumelu’s motion demanding Pantami’s resignation as false.

The House of Representatives has promised to hear the motion of Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu, over the call for the resignation of the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami.

This was made known in a statement by the spokesperson of the House of Reps, Hon. Benjamin Kalu, on Friday.

Kalu debunked the media reports that the Speaker of the House, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, blocked Elumelu’s motion demanding Pantami’s resignation as false.

According to him, “the House will attend to the motion when it is properly presented at a later date”.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the House is guided by the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives (House Rules) in its operations and administration.

“In this case, the Minority Leader should have known better than to present such an issue for debate via Order 6 of the House Rules which only applies to Legislative Privileges.

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“He ought to have come under Order 8 Rule 4, as a matter of urgent national importance, or via a motion on notice to enable other members second the motion and make their contributions through debate in a truly democratic fashion.

“It is, therefore, pertinent to inform Nigerians that the House has not acted in error, but in line with the provisions of its rules. All insinuations that the House did not allow democratic debate to take place on the important issue of Pantami’s resignation are simply untrue,” part of the statement read.

The embattled minister has been under fire since the visual and audio clips of some of his teachings resurfaced over a decade later, some of which showed he was sympathetic to Islamic extremist sects like Al-Qaeda and Taliban.

Many Nigerians have called for the sacking or resignation of the minister after some of his comments which supported Islamic extremism came to light.