By Femi Aribisala
The APC did not win any seat whatsoever
in the House of Representatives in the
2011 elections. Therefore, it cannot
provide the Speaker of the House.
Have you ever heard the parable of a man
who stole a goat and was arrested and
prosecuted? When brought before the
judge, his line of defense was that others
had stolen goats in the past but had not
been prosecuted. How does that absolve
him of guilt? The man is a thief, pure and
simple.
When one talks of the treachery of Aminu
Tambuwal’s defection from the PDP to the
APC, his apologists trot out opposition-
party legislators and governors that also
defected to the PDP in the past. So what?
All such defections are equally
treacherous and morally indefensible.
What we have today is the glorification of
treachery for political reasons. The
honorable thing for any defecting
politician to do is to resign his or her seat
in the legislature and then seek a fresh
mandate under the new party through a
by-election.
Dishonorable politics.
Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Mutawallen
Sakwato
In 1983, Abubakar Rimi resigned as
Governor of Kano when he defected from
the Peoples’ Redemption Party (PRP) to
the Nigeria Peoples’ Party (NPP). He did
this because he was an honorable man; a
true progressive. In 2014, Aminu
Tanbuwal defected from the PDP to the
APC but has refused to relinquish his seat
in the National Assembly. He did this
because he is not an honorable man;
neither is he a true progressive.
Tambuwal has been Speaker for four
years, and yet he has not championed one
single piece of progressive legislation in
all that time.
With his defection, some busybody
parliamentarians with 27.5 million naira
to burn bought the APC nomination
papers for Tambuwal so he can contest for
the party’s presidential ticket. Almost
immediately, he was touted as a spoiler
for Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential
ambitions and was shamelessly courted by
the Tinubu brigade in the APC. Realising
that his hopeless candidacy would only be
used to foment problems within the APC,
Tambuwal wisely resigned from the
contest, forfeiting the millions paid.
As a face-saving device to camouflage his
signaled readiness to ditch Buhari for
Tambuwal, Bola Tinubu went public to
congratulate Tambuwal for deciding not
to contest for the APC presidential
nomination. He said: “This sacrifice you
have made will not be in vain. It must be
noted by all democrats across the country
as an act of great patriotism.”
Trouble-maker Tambuwal
This is really neat. Tinubu’s definition of
patriotism applies to the APC and not to
Nigeria. Tinubu forgot to mention that
while Tambuwal decided not to cause
trouble in the APC; at the same time, he
decided to be a trouble-maker at the
national level. Should this man who has
the good sense to withdraw as APC
presidential candidate “as a sacrifice for
the cohesion and unity of the APC” not
also have the good sense to resign from
the National Assembly now that he has
defected from the PDP for the sake of
national peace and cohesion? Apparently
not!
According to the Godfather of the APC, a
patriot can be a trouble-maker at the
national level, as long as his trouble-
making is in the interest of the APC. That,
in a nutshell, is the crux of the problem
with the APC. It is a party of trouble-
makers. The APC does not really believe it
can win the 2015 elections. Therefore, it is
determined to cause as much mayhem as
possible; even threatening to create a
parallel government when and if it loses
the election.
The Tambuwal saga is the latest example
of APC mischief. The party’s strategy is to
achieve power immorally and illegally. It
is a party of treacherous defectors. It even
went to Obasanjo, a former PDP
president, asking him to defect to the
APC. Instead of attracting its own
membership, it gathers together a coterie
of treacherous defectors. All its
presidential candidates have jumped from
party to party.
It is now encouraging Tambuwal in his
treachery of attempting to defect to the
APC with the position of Speaker.
However, the APC remains a minority
party in the National Assembly. The
position of Speaker belongs to the
majority party. The APC cannot receive by
subterfuge what rightly belongs to the
majority PDP.
Tambuwal knows he can no longer be
Speaker. He knows that APC cannot win a
majority of the seats in the legislature in
the coming elections. He knows the “mago
mago” he used to become the Speaker
cannot be duplicated in the next House of
Representatives. Therefore, in defeat, he
has picked up the nomination form to
contest as Governor of Sokoto under the
APC ticket.
Show of shame
Since this is the new reality confronting
Tambuwal, the man should stop causing
trouble and simply resign his seat in the
House. But rather than resign, and with
his security detail removed, Tambuwal
drove with a convoy of “thugs” to the
National Assembly. This led to a show of
shame that was televised and broadcast to
the whole world. The fact that Tambuwal
led this brazen display of lawlessness at
the National Assembly shows that he is
unworthy of being the number four citizen
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Emmanuel Ojukwu, the Public Relations
Officer of the Nigeria Police, had this to
say: “The speaker came with thugs,
refused to be searched and six of the
hoodlums attacked a police man, after
which the police tear-gassed the Speaker
and his riotous crowd so as to restore
order. Everybody has seen that somebody
was even beating somebody; somebody
was pushing a policeman from the car.
Somebody was removing road blocks
mounted by police.” Those “somebodies”
are supposed to be Nigeria’s law-makers.
In effect, championed by Tambuwal, our
law-makers became law-breakers.
Impeded by the police from entering the
House, some climbed the gate. The
Speaker himself flouted the directives of
the police. He forced his way inside. Later,
in disgrace, he sent his media aide with
the statement that: “The honorable
speaker wishes to state that he is a law-
abiding citizen of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria who has no immunity against
arrest and prosecution.” This is what is
called “campaigning after failure to be
elected.” The video of his lawlessness had
already gone viral on the internet.
Time to resign
There is nothing left for Tambuwal to do
now than to resign from the House of
Representatives and save Nigeria from all
this “wahala” he has created. Defecting
from one party to another is against the
spirit and the letter of the Nigerian
Constitution. Section 68 (g) of the 1999
Constitution says: “A member of the
Senate or of the House of Representatives
shall vacate his seat in the House of which
he is a member if being a person whose
election to the House was sponsored by a
political party, he becomes a member of
another political party before the
expiration of the period for which that
House was elected…”
Tambuwal’s name did not even appear on
the ballot-paper when he was elected to
the House of Representatives from his
constituency in Sokoto. It was the PDP
that was on the ballot. That is how Rotimi
Amaechi became Governor of Rivers
State. He was not even the candidate who
ran for the office. However, the courts
ruled that he should have been the PDP
candidate. Since the PDP won the election,
Amaechi became the Governor of Rivers
State even though he did not campaign in
the election for the post.
The only proviso in the Constitution for
Tambuwal to remain in the House is if his
defection to the APC is as a result of a
division in the PDP or the merger of the
PDP with another political party, or the
faction of another party. This situation
does not exist, except in the imagination
of APC supporters. The courts in Nigeria
have ruled that the PDP is not divided and
is not bedeviled by any factions. Everyone
in Nigeria knows this in any case.
Some people say it is not the business of
the executive to determine if Tambuwal
should remain as Speaker or not: it is a
matter for the courts. However, the courts
don’t execute laws: the executive does.
The Constitution says if a man defects
from his elected party to another party, he
automatically loses his seat. Tambuwal
resigned; therefore he has lost his seat.
The executive has implemented that loss.
If Tambuwal has a problem with that, the
onus is on him to go to court. The onus is
not on the executive. Until the courts say
otherwise, Tambuwal can no longer be a
member of the House of Representatives;
and someone who is not a member of the
House cannot be the Speaker. We
borrowed our political system from the
United States where it is well understood
that the Speaker of the House cannot
belong to the minority party.
Attempted coup
Tambuwal, the Speaker, is APC. Emeka
Ihedioha, the Deputy Speaker, is PDP.
This situation is unacceptable, especially
given the fact that the mandate for
leadership in the House was freely given
by the electorate to the PDP and not the
APC. You cannot have a situation of
minority rule, when in actual fact it is the
majority that has the mandate.
Indeed, at the national level, the APC is
unknown and has yet to be recognized by
the Nigerian electorate. The APC has
never presented a candidate to the
electorate at the national level. Therefore,
the APC cannot come out of nowhere to
commandeer the major office of the
Speaker. These shenanigans have gone on
for too long. The APC did not win any seat
whatsoever in the House of
Representatives in the 2011 elections.
Therefore, it cannot provide the Speaker
of the House.
Tambuwal should have known that by
resigning from the PDP while hanging on
to the position of Speaker he is bound to
generate unnecessary political tension. If
he did not know this before, he knows this
now. Failure to resign from the House
now only portrays him as a shameless
troublesome opportunist. Tambuwal
needs to redeem his battered image
soonest. He should do the honorable thing
and resign from the House without
further delay.
www.vanguardngr.com/2014/11/tambuwal-law-breaker-supporters/

A word is enough for the unwise tambo'ole..

Titilayodeji13:
By Femi Aribisala
The APC did not win any seat whatsoever
in the House of Representatives in the
2011 elections. Therefore, it cannot
provide the Speaker of the House.
Have you ever heard the parable of a man
who stole a goat and was arrested and
prosecuted? When brought before the
judge, his line of defense was that others
had stolen goats in the past but had not
been prosecuted. How does that absolve
him of guilt? The man is a thief, pure and
simple.
When one talks of the treachery of Aminu
Tambuwal’s defection from the PDP to the
APC, his apologists trot out opposition-
party legislators and governors that also
defected to the PDP in the past. So what?
All such defections are equally
treacherous and morally indefensible.
What we have today is the glorification of
treachery for political reasons. The
honorable thing for any defecting
politician to do is to resign his or her seat
in the legislature and then seek a fresh
mandate under the new party through a
by-election.
Dishonorable politics.
Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Mutawallen
Sakwato
In 1983, Abubakar Rimi resigned as
Governor of Kano when he defected from
the Peoples’ Redemption Party (PRP) to
the Nigeria Peoples’ Party (NPP). He did
this because he was an honorable man; a
true progressive. In 2014, Aminu
Tanbuwal defected from the PDP to the
APC but has refused to relinquish his seat
in the National Assembly. He did this
because he is not an honorable man;
neither is he a true progressive.
Tambuwal has been Speaker for four
years, and yet he has not championed one
single piece of progressive legislation in
all that time.
With his defection, some busybody
parliamentarians with 27.5 million naira
to burn bought the APC nomination
papers for Tambuwal so he can contest for
the party’s presidential ticket. Almost
immediately, he was touted as a spoiler
for Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential
ambitions and was shamelessly courted by
the Tinubu brigade in the APC. Realising
that his hopeless candidacy would only be
used to foment problems within the APC,
Tambuwal wisely resigned from the
contest, forfeiting the millions paid.
As a face-saving device to camouflage his
signaled readiness to ditch Buhari for
Tambuwal, Bola Tinubu went public to
congratulate Tambuwal for deciding not
to contest for the APC presidential
nomination. He said: “This sacrifice you
have made will not be in vain. It must be
noted by all democrats across the country
as an act of great patriotism.”
Trouble-maker Tambuwal
This is really neat. Tinubu’s definition of
patriotism applies to the APC and not to
Nigeria. Tinubu forgot to mention that
while Tambuwal decided not to cause
trouble in the APC; at the same time, he
decided to be a trouble-maker at the
national level. Should this man who has
the good sense to withdraw as APC
presidential candidate “as a sacrifice for
the cohesion and unity of the APC” not
also have the good sense to resign from
the National Assembly now that he has
defected from the PDP for the sake of
national peace and cohesion? Apparently
not!
According to the Godfather of the APC, a
patriot can be a trouble-maker at the
national level, as long as his trouble-
making is in the interest of the APC. That,
in a nutshell, is the crux of the problem
with the APC. It is a party of trouble-
makers. The APC does not really believe it
can win the 2015 elections. Therefore, it is
determined to cause as much mayhem as
possible; even threatening to create a
parallel government when and if it loses
the election.
The Tambuwal saga is the latest example
of APC mischief. The party’s strategy is to
achieve power immorally and illegally. It
is a party of treacherous defectors. It even
went to Obasanjo, a former PDP
president, asking him to defect to the
APC. Instead of attracting its own
membership, it gathers together a coterie
of treacherous defectors. All its
presidential candidates have jumped from
party to party.
It is now encouraging Tambuwal in his
treachery of attempting to defect to the
APC with the position of Speaker.
However, the APC remains a minority
party in the National Assembly. The
position of Speaker belongs to the
majority party. The APC cannot receive by
subterfuge what rightly belongs to the
majority PDP.
Tambuwal knows he can no longer be
Speaker. He knows that APC cannot win a
majority of the seats in the legislature in
the coming elections. He knows the “mago
mago” he used to become the Speaker
cannot be duplicated in the next House of
Representatives. Therefore, in defeat, he
has picked up the nomination form to
contest as Governor of Sokoto under the
APC ticket.
Show of shame
Since this is the new reality confronting
Tambuwal, the man should stop causing
trouble and simply resign his seat in the
House. But rather than resign, and with
his security detail removed, Tambuwal
drove with a convoy of “thugs” to the
National Assembly. This led to a show of
shame that was televised and broadcast to
the whole world. The fact that Tambuwal
led this brazen display of lawlessness at
the National Assembly shows that he is
unworthy of being the number four citizen
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Emmanuel Ojukwu, the Public Relations
Officer of the Nigeria Police, had this to
say: “The speaker came with thugs,
refused to be searched and six of the
hoodlums attacked a police man, after
which the police tear-gassed the Speaker
and his riotous crowd so as to restore
order. Everybody has seen that somebody
was even beating somebody; somebody
was pushing a policeman from the car.
Somebody was removing road blocks
mounted by police.” Those “somebodies”
are supposed to be Nigeria’s law-makers.
In effect, championed by Tambuwal, our
law-makers became law-breakers.
Impeded by the police from entering the
House, some climbed the gate. The
Speaker himself flouted the directives of
the police. He forced his way inside. Later,
in disgrace, he sent his media aide with
the statement that: “The honorable
speaker wishes to state that he is a law-
abiding citizen of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria who has no immunity against
arrest and prosecution.” This is what is
called “campaigning after failure to be
elected.” The video of his lawlessness had
already gone viral on the internet.
Time to resign
There is nothing left for Tambuwal to do
now than to resign from the House of
Representatives and save Nigeria from all
this “wahala” he has created. Defecting
from one party to another is against the
spirit and the letter of the Nigerian
Constitution. Section 68 (g) of the 1999
Constitution says: “A member of the
Senate or of the House of Representatives
shall vacate his seat in the House of which
he is a member if being a person whose
election to the House was sponsored by a
political party, he becomes a member of
another political party before the
expiration of the period for which that
House was elected…”
Tambuwal’s name did not even appear on
the ballot-paper when he was elected to
the House of Representatives from his
constituency in Sokoto. It was the PDP
that was on the ballot. That is how Rotimi
Amaechi became Governor of Rivers
State. He was not even the candidate who
ran for the office. However, the courts
ruled that he should have been the PDP
candidate. Since the PDP won the election,
Amaechi became the Governor of Rivers
State even though he did not campaign in
the election for the post.
The only proviso in the Constitution for
Tambuwal to remain in the House is if his
defection to the APC is as a result of a
division in the PDP or the merger of the
PDP with another political party, or the
faction of another party. This situation
does not exist, except in the imagination
of APC supporters. The courts in Nigeria
have ruled that the PDP is not divided and
is not bedeviled by any factions. Everyone
in Nigeria knows this in any case.
Some people say it is not the business of
the executive to determine if Tambuwal
should remain as Speaker or not: it is a
matter for the courts. However, the courts
don’t execute laws: the executive does.
The Constitution says if a man defects
from his elected party to another party, he
automatically loses his seat. Tambuwal
resigned; therefore he has lost his seat.
The executive has implemented that loss.
If Tambuwal has a problem with that, the
onus is on him to go to court. The onus is
not on the executive. Until the courts say
otherwise, Tambuwal can no longer be a
member of the House of Representatives;
and someone who is not a member of the
House cannot be the Speaker. We
borrowed our political system from the
United States where it is well understood
that the Speaker of the House cannot
belong to the minority party.
Attempted coup
Tambuwal, the Speaker, is APC. Emeka
Ihedioha, the Deputy Speaker, is PDP.
This situation is unacceptable, especially
given the fact that the mandate for
leadership in the House was freely given
by the electorate to the PDP and not the
APC. You cannot have a situation of
minority rule, when in actual fact it is the
majority that has the mandate.
Indeed, at the national level, the APC is
unknown and has yet to be recognized by
the Nigerian electorate. The APC has
never presented a candidate to the
electorate at the national level. Therefore,
the APC cannot come out of nowhere to
commandeer the major office of the
Speaker. These shenanigans have gone on
for too long. The APC did not win any seat
whatsoever in the House of
Representatives in the 2011 elections.
Therefore, it cannot provide the Speaker
of the House.
Tambuwal should have known that by
resigning from the PDP while hanging on
to the position of Speaker he is bound to
generate unnecessary political tension. If
he did not know this before, he knows this
now. Failure to resign from the House
now only portrays him as a shameless
troublesome opportunist. Tambuwal
needs to redeem his battered image
soonest. He should do the honorable thing
and resign from the House without
further delay.
www.vanguardngr.com/2014/11/tambuwal-law-breaker-supporters/

He is back

Defection has come to stay until a court rules to clamp it down.

Oshiomole should stop 'agbero'-politics capable of drawing us back to the 'wetieee' era and approach the Supreme court on this.

Some politicians will be forgotten after PDP presidential primaries.

God help Nigeria youth to see that both PDP and APC are the same.

If you were quiet when it happened before...you better keep quiet now .