The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, on Tuesday, May 26, 2015 bowed out of office, handing over leadership of the lower chamber to the Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, who will now run affairs of the house until Friday, June 5, 2015 when the tenure of the house expires.
Tambuwal made the move in order to avert a constitutional mix up of taking oath for two separate offices as he will be inaugurated as Governor of Sokoto State on Friday, May 29, 2015.
Speaking to journalists after plenary sitting, Tambuwal said: “My stay here in the House would have effectively come to a end on May 29 after I would have been inaugurated as governor.
“We have to avoid any possible issues on this, since the constitution is silent on what happens when a sitting speaker has to move to another office.”
Tambuwal further noted that the 1999 Constitutiondid not make any provision for a situation where the Speaker will leave the office for another while his oath was still valid.
He said: “At our executive session, a member came up with an ingenious way of dealing with the matter on hand, which members accepted.
“He came up with the idea that the portion of the House rules in question should be suspended to enable the deputy speaker to continue to preside over the House instead of electing a new speaker.
“I won’t shut down the House. The House can sit tomorrow, Thursday and possibly the other sitting days of next week,” he said.
