311 Reps Pass State Police Bill As Minority Caucus Walks Out

Opposition lawmakers have staged a walkout as the House of Representatives passed an executive bill seeking to create state police.

The lawmakers led by the Minority Leader, Hon. Fred Agbedi (PDP, Bayelsa), took the action at plenary yesterday when Speaker Abbas put the bill to a voice vote without reading and considering each of the proposed legislation’s 26 clauses individually, even though members of the minority caucus attempted to object to the process.

Addressing journalists after the walkout, Agbedi said opposition lawmakers were not opposed to the creation of state police but rather to the manner in which the bill was passed, in violation of parliamentary procedure and constitutional requirements.

The minority leader said: “Ordinarily, this alteration exercise is supposed to go through clause by clause, and then for every member in every clause to cast his vote. We also want to add that the minority caucus is not opposed to the creation of state police; we are not opposed to the creation of state police. Whatever remedies the insecurity in this country, as a minority, we are ready to support them.

“But any action taken by the Parliament must follow due process. We are talking about an institution, the institution of the National Assembly, the institution and the House as a House of Representatives, it has its own rules and laws, and that when the rules and regulations are not complied with, it affects the credibility of the institution as well as the credibility of Nigeria and our democracy,” he said.

Agbedi said the caucus had interfaced with the Speaker and informed him that the opposition lawmakers are in support of this bill, but there were certain amendments in these alterations that “we will require to bring in.”

According to the leader of the opposition lawmakers, “Mr Speaker agreed with us, Mr Speaker even identified areas that we can intervene, but for Mr Speaker to sit as Chairman of the Committee of the Whole and just read the long title of it and then put a voice question for determination of an alteration that requires turn-by-turn clause-by-clause consideration and voting is absurd.

“That is why we have come to tell Nigerians that these actions, abuse of due process, disregard of rules and regulations, and disobedience of the constitutional provision do not make a nation appear that it can compete globally. With these kinds of actions, we are demarketing our Parliament and our nation to the world, as we are seen as a people who do not follow rules and regulations.

“That is where the APC government and the leadership of the APC government are leading Nigerians to. And that is why we’re saying that Nigerians must notice, Nigerians must hear this, Nigerians must understand the point from which we are coming, why we decided to work out.

“To the extent that, as a minority leader, I raise a point of order and, without the chairman in the Committee of the whole, hearing my point of order, he ruled me out of order, so which order was he ruling me out of? He needed to hear my point of order and then ruled me based on whether my point of order complied with our rules with the Constitution or not.”