There are strong indications that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Yakubu Dogara is facing pressure from members of the house to name chairmen for the standing committees of the lower house.
According to The Punch, committees not being constituted has led to idleness by the members who merely sign the attendance register since the 8th House was inaugurated on Tuesday, June 9, 2015.
“Over 200 of the new members of the House have not experienced any oversight duties three months after they came to the National Assembly.
“They feel they are not working, as the bulk of legislative duties are done through the committees.
“There has been pressure on Dogara to announce the committees since members reconvened from their annual break on September 29.”
“In addition, our colleagues want this issue of committees done with because of the contending interests at play.
“There were promises and concessions made during the electioneering for the speakership; there are political party interests, there are interests of individuals and, of course, the various pressure groups within the House.
“So, besides not having much work to do without the committees, there are members already suspecting that they might be schemed out of the committee positions they were initially promised,” a senior member of the lower chamber told a Punch correspondent.
The report also has it that the pressure mounted on Dogara might yield result this week as the speaker is expected to announce members of the committee this week.
There is a challenge however as many house of rep members had not returned their forms on committee preference while others had not even collected theirs at the time of this report.
