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The September 6, 2010 impeachment of the
Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of Ogun
State House of Assembly and suspension
of 15 members of the House, including
the impeached Speaker, by only nine (9)
members of the 26-member House
mark
another attempt at disparaging Nigeria`s
efforts at enthroning constitutionalism
and rule of law. The actions of the
nine-member faction of the House
were/are a brazen illegality, and
reminds one of the illegal impeachment
of Governor Joshua Dariye on November 6,
2006 by a six-member faction of the
24-member Plateau State House of
Assembly, which was later, and
fittingly, nullified by both the Court
of Appeal and the Supreme Court of
Nigeria. See
DAPIANLONG V DARIYE
(2007) 8 NWLR (Pt. 1036) 289.
I shall illustrate the illegality of the
Ogun State incident by trying to provide
answers to three major questions raised
by that show of shame: Was the Speaker
validly impeached by one-third (1/3)
majority of the House? Can nine (9) out
of the 26 members that make up Ogun
State House of assembly validly conduct
the business of the House in the absence
of both the Speaker and the Deputy
Speaker? Can nine (9) members validly
suspend fifteen (15) members in a
26-member democratic Legislative House?
On the first question, section 92 (2)
(c) of the Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria, provides
that “The Speaker or
Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly
(of a State) shall vacate his office if
he is removed from office by a
resolution of the House of Assembly
supported by the votes of not less
than two-thirds majority of the
members of the House.” In
DAPIANLONG V DARIYE
(supra), the Supreme Court of Nigeria
(per Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen
JSC in the lead judgment) held that the
expression “two-thirds of the
members” of the Plateau State
House of Assembly refers to
“two-thirds
of ALL the members of the Plateau State
House of Assembly which is made up of 24
members; that is 16 members. It is not
in doubt that the word "ALL" means;
entire, complete, the whole number of;
every one of. See page 47 of
Webster's New Twentieth Century
Dictionary, Unabridged Second Edition,
1975.”
It therefore follows that the purported
impeachment of the Ogun Speaker by only
nine members of the House (1/3 majority)
is unconstitutional, illegal, void and
of no effect whatsoever. So also is the
purported election of a replacement for
the impeached Speaker by the same
nine-member faction.
Second, on the issue of whether the nine
(9) members
validly conducted the business of the
Ogun State House of Assembly on
September 6, 2010 without the
participation of both the Speaker and
the Deputy Speaker, the Constitution
provides that
the Quorum of a House of Assembly shall
be one-third of all the members
of the House (s.
96 (1)). And a House of
Assembly may validly act notwithstanding
any vacancy in its membership (s. 102).
Also, the Speaker
of the House (or in his absence the
Deputy Speaker) shall preside at any
sitting of the House. But where both the
Speaker and his Deputy are absent at any
sitting, such member of the House as the
House may elect for a purpose shall
preside (see s. 95 (1) & (2)). From the
above provisions of the Constitution,
especially sections 96 and 102, it is
clear that members constituting not less
than one-third (1/3) majority of the
total membership of the House can
validly conduct the affairs of the
House, with the Speaker (or the Deputy
Speaker) presiding. However, on any
particular day where a quorum is formed
in the absence of the Speaker and Deputy
Speaker, the House is permitted under
section 95 (2) to elect any member of
the House to preside over its
proceedings for that day. Accordingly,
the nine members of the Ogun State House
of Assembly might have validly convened
and conducted proceedings of the House
on September 6, 2010 by virtue of having
formed a quorum under 96(1) of the
Constitution. It must however
be stressed that
this is only for the purpose of
conducting ordinary proceedings
of the House. Where the consideration of
special or extra ordinary matters
requiring two-thirds majority of
all members of the House (such as
impeachment of the Speaker or his Deputy
under section 92 (2) (c) of the
Constitution) is in hand, the nine (9)
members clearly do not constitute at
least two-thirds of all the 26 members
of the Ogun State House of Assembly, and
so remained incompetent and not
qualified to initiate and or conduct
valid proceedings in such special or
extra ordinary matters in the House.
(see the judgment of
Mahmud
Mohammed, J.S.C
in
DAPIANLONG V DARIYE
(supra); see also
Inakoju v. Adeleke
(2007) 4 NWLR (pt, 1025) 423.
It is my respectful view that the
approval of the N100 billion bond for
the Governor also falls among
special/extra-ordinary matters and as
such can only be carried out by at least
two-thirds majority of the membership of
the House, which the 9 members obviously
do not constitute.
What is more, that only nine (9) members
(the minority) of a 26-member
Legislative House sat and passed a
resolution purporting to suspend fifteen
(15) members (the majority) of the same
House in a Democracy is not only an act
of legislative waywardness but runs
against everything that democracy
symbolizes. Democracy is government of
the people by the people; the people
exercise their ruler-ship rights either
directly or through their elected
representatives. Now, since the people
(or their representatives) are rarely
unanimous, democracy as a descriptive
term has come to be synonymous with
majority rule,
majoritarianism, where the views of the
majority will always prevail over those
of the minority, rather than vice versa.
It would therefore amount to a negation
of the character and object of democracy
for minority resolutions to be permitted
to override those of the majority.
Beside this, one other issue that casts
serious doubt on the legality of the
sitting of that faction of the Ogun
State House of Assembly on September 6,
2010 is the media report that the
nine-member faction convened and
conducted the affairs of the day without
the official Mace, which is the symbol
of authority of the House, and without
which the House can hardly conduct valid
proceedings. Yet again is the allegation
by the 15-member faction (led by the
Speaker, Hon Tunji Egbetokun) that the
House had validly proceeded on recess
and was still on recess as at September
6 when the 9-member faction purportedly
sat. If answers to these posers are in
the affirmative, then, added to what has
been discussed above, one can safely
conclude that the said session by only
nine (9) out of the 26 members that make
up the House was/is only a charade, an
exercise in vainness
In conclusion, the Ogun House saga was
not the first of its kind in Nigeria
since the country`s return to democratic
rule in 1999. If one recalls the various
instances in the past in which the rule
of law had been unabashedly taken for a
ride in this country, in a do-or-die
manner, one cannot but conclude that, it
seems, some Nigerian politicians and
political office holders are yet to come
to term with the fact of rule of law
being the substratum of an lasting
democratic rule, and that any democracy
that fails to sympathise with this fact
is bound in the long run to crash. If
Nigeria and its infantile democracy must
endure, we all have to hold fast to due
process of law in all situations without
exception, notwithstanding whose ox is
gored. All well-meaning Nigerians must
therefore denounce the September 6
coup d’état perpetrated in Ogun
State House of Assembly, the same being
a barefaced rape of the Constitution.
The rule of law demands supremacy or
predominance of regular law, as opposed
to use and or influence of arbitrary
power. It insists that no man or
institution is above the law, that is,
there is only one law for all and
sundry, whose application must not be
selective and to which all are
necessarily subject; what is good for
the goose must be good for the gander!
The law is not, and must not be used as,
a weapon of tyranny, intimidation and
victimization of political opponents.
Section 1 (1) of the Nigerian
Constitution
provides that “this Constitution is
Supreme and its provisions shall have
binding force on all authorities and
persons throughout the Federal Republic
of Nigeria.”
In Military Governor of Lagos
State vs. Ojukwu (2001) FWLR
(Part 50) 1779 at 1802 & 1799, the
Supreme court stressed that “the
Nigerian Constitution is founded on the
rule of law, the primary meaning of
which is that everything must be done
according to law. Nigeria, being one of
the countries in the world which profess
loudly to follow the rule of law, there
is no room for the rule of self help by
force to operate.”
Sylvester
C. Udemezue, Lecturer,Nigerian
Law School, Victoria Island, Lagos,
Nigeria
(mrudems@yahoo.com,
0802 136 5545)
jimoh lateef’scomment:
Ogun state saga just remind us their do-or-die politics,hence how do we explain
this?It is a clear indication that they are there for their own interest rather than
masses interest.May God delivers us from their hands.
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