Rivers Lawmaker Vows To Protect APC’s Interest

The lawmaker representing Eleme Constituency in the Rivers State House of Assembly, Hon, Josiah John Olu, has vowed to always protect the interest of his party, All Progressives Congress (APC), just as he promised to give his constituency a better representation in the Assembly.

Hon. Olu, who stated this in an interview after Thursday’s sitting said he would try as much as possible to work with other legislators for the interest of the state but would raise alarm over any illegitimate process in the Assembly.

The lawmaker who was denied the position of Minority Leader in the House for being the only member of the opposition in the House, regretted that the standing order was not adhered to by the House.

According to him,’’ We have a set of rules that contained in what we referred to as a standing order. A standing order is a rule book that governs the operations of the House of Assembly and our activities and it is very clear in the standing order where you have two parties, there will be majority leader and minority leader and today being the 2nd day of the Assembly, the House decided to elect other principal House officers, the Majority leader, Deputy Majority Leader, Whip and deputy whip.

“All I did was to bring to the attention of the Speaker that a section of our standing order talks about the Majority Leader and section 10 talks about the Minority Leader’’.

He noted that he represents a party and also represents an interest, adding that he cannot allow some person from other party to represent his party interest, even though I am just one persons from a different party.

“I represent a party unless they want to discard the standing order. If the Speaker set a bad precedent, that means tomorrow, posterity will hold us accountable on our actions. If we have a rules that streamline our business and activities, we should be able to follow it. I try as much as possible, and to over heat the system, but I draw his attention of what I see as anomalies in the selections of the house leaders. If you notice when they were voting on what is right, I voted.

‘’As far as I am concern, he is not the leader but a majority leader. We have two parties in the 8th Assembly, PDP AND APC, and APC is duty bond to have its leader, which is Minority leader, even though is a lone voice, that is my stand and I stand by it’’, he said.