Speaker Abbas Tajudeen has stopped the planned removal of the Minority Leader of the House, Kingsley Chinda by the Minority caucus, thereby stopping what was likely to be an implosion in the House on Tuesday.
Members of the caucus met on Monday night to deliberate on the injury secured by their leader, Kingsley Chinda preventing the Speaker from accepting any correspondence from them seeking to remove him as minority leader.
He alleged that he was being targeted because of his relationship with FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, but those seeking his removal accused him of not calling meeting of the caucus and failing to speak out for them.
The Nation gathered that Speaker Abbas, who attended the meeting of the Minority caucus on Tuesday night, appealed to them to give him some time to address the issues raised against Chinda by members of the caucus.
A highly placed source, who was at the meeting which was said have lasted for about three hours, said members reluctantly allowed the Speaker to intervene after a long plea, adding that even attempts by Chinda to apologise over the issues were initially rebuffed by the members.
He said: “The northern PDP caucus was of the view that we should sack the entire minority leadership. The South West caucus also had the same opinion. It was only the South East thay was open for resolution and not sacking the entire leadership.
“All the NNPP signed up for sacking them all. The Deputy Minority Leader has fallen out with Kwankwaso and is not working in collaboration with the party. But he is holding on to the position. Things don’t work like that.
“But the Speaker pleaded foe time to address the grievances. Like you know, the Speaker was not supposed to attend our meeting. But he insisted on attending and out of respect for him, we allowed him.
“Members told him that the issues at stake had nothing to do with welfare. Members were particularly angry with Chinda because of the case he filed against us in court.
“But he pleaded with members to forgive him, claiming that he filed the case not out of spite for the members, but as a form of security and as a way of tying the hands of the Speaker not to accept any correspondence from them.
“He said it was the only option he could think of when he heard that members that members were gathering signatures against him.”
The source said that part of the resolutions arrived at during the meeting was for him to “withdraw the case from court while we allow the Speaker the time they requested for.
He said: “if you were at plenary today, you would have heard an announcement from him. Inviting leaders of the various caucus to a meeting by 3.00pm. He claimed the meeting is part of his reaching out. But what we are saying is that he should withdraw the suit first”.
He told the Nation that the Minority caucus has also filed a motion on notice before the Federal High Court in response to the suit by Chinda.
In the motion seen by The Nation, members of the Minority caucus are seeking for an order of the court striking out the suit filed by the Minority Leader for lacking in merit and for want of jurisdiction and for such further or other Orders as the Court may deem fit and expedient to make in the circumstances.
The suit filed by Chief Tony Uche (SAN) listed four ground for the application to include that the Plaintiff has no legal rights to be protected by any order of injunction; that there is no justiciable dispute between the parties; she suit as commenced is incompetent and the Court lacks the jurisdiction to have entertained the same.
It is in the interest of justice to discharge the said order made against the Defendants and/or strike out this suit.
The motion is supported by a 10 point affidavit in support deposed to by Barrister Ibrahim Garba who show he is the Director of Legal from the PDP headquarters.
Another member of the caucus, who attended the meeting, also told The Nation that members wanted to impeach Chinda while sparing Ali Isah JC, the House Minority Whip.
He said: “Initially, members of the northern PDP caucus wanted to spare Ali and proceed to impeach Chinda and others. But we drew their attention on the need to uphold national unity and loyalty. Impeaching a southerner and sparing a northerner will send a bad message out there.”
He added that before the meeting “Considerable number of signatures were gathered to move against Chinda before the intervention of the Speaker” saying without the Speaker’s intervention, it would have been disastrous for him.”
