Politics
Reps Under My Leadership Gave Buhari Maximum Support –Dogara
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, said on Wednesday that the House, under his leadership, cooperated fully with President Muhammadu Buhari’s led executive arm of government.
Dogara specifically said that the eight House of Representatives always gave speedy consideration and passage to legislation and other requests forwarded by the President.
The executive bills, he added, were aimed at fast-tracking implementation of the Buhari administration’s policies and plans.
Dogara, according to a statement by his Special Adviser on Media, Turakh Hassan, stated this in Abuja when he received the Euro Knowledge Award in recognition of his exemplary leadership.
He noted that there were times the House passed executive bills within two days or one week.
He added that the eighth House of Representatives remained the most performing in Nigeria’s political history from independence in 1960 to date.
Dogara said, “We have done exceptionally well. It is on record that this has been the most productive National Assembly ever, as well as unparalleled House in the history of the House of Representatives.
“We hope that those who are coming after us, those who will take over from us will do better and be able to rededicate themselves and to achieve the ideals they set out for themselves.
“When we started out, it was our desire and thank God we can say today that we have cleaned up virtually all laws we inherited from even 1800.
“Before we embarked on this massive exercise, some of our Law books were still containing Pounds Sterling, in some laws, some addresses in the United Kingdom were even mentioned.
“To the credit of the eighth assembly, all those things are no longer reflected in the body of our laws.
“Anyone who thinks we have not supported the Federal Government enough in the bid to create a conducive business environment to attract better investment into Nigeria should check what we have done in the area of the ease of doing business in Nigeria.
“There were times when we ensured that within days or weeks, we passed these bills that were required to jumpstart this process to bring Nigeria out of recession and prosper.
“This made Nigeria jump about 24 places in the Global Index of the world ranking of nations in the Ease of Doing Business,” he added.
Politics
LP Crisis: Ex-NWC Member Dumps Dumps Abure Faction
Mr Ojukwu, who recently returned to the interim National Working Committee led by Senator Esther Nenadi Usman, noted that the party had 34 elected members in the House of Representatives, eight Senators, and 80 members at the state Houses of Assembly after the 2023 general elections.
“Now we lost all of them,” he said. “I don’t think we have as many as five members in the National Assembly.”
The former national officer of the LP talked to journalists in Abuja and said he chose to join the caretaker committee led by Senator Nenadi-Usman because they are now the officially recognized leaders of the Party.
“I chose to work with the caretaker committee to help save the Labour Party, for the benefit of the party. I also want to use this chance to ask my colleagues at the national, state, and local government levels to come together and help rebuild our party.
“Another election is around the corner. We lost everything we have. They have left to other political parties. So I’ll reach out to all my friends in the other group to get together and work on making this party stronger again.
“The caretaker committee has formed a reconciliation committee. Let’s come together and talk so that we can restore the first opposition political party in Nigeria.”
Mr Ojukwu, who was part of the Julius Abure’s group, said there are no more factions in the LP.
He added, “There is a court ruling, and since it is valid, the right people are in the correct positions.”
He urged Barr Abure and others to drop the legal cases they have filed because they are not helping the party.
“Litigations are killing political parties”, he said. “They’ve seen many political parties disappear because of legal battles, and the Labor Party is losing support every day, which makes me feel sad.”
Mr Ojukwu said he did not think joining the Senator Nenadi-Usman’s NWC was a betrayal of the Abure group, describing himself as “the oxygen” of that faction.
“I’m with this group because of the verdict. But I never betrayed anybody. Rather, I was betrayed,” he added.
