There was mild drama on the floor of the House of Representatives on Tuesday when members unanimously rejected a motion seeking to urge the federal government to evacuate stranded Nigerians in China, sequel to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Members went into wide murmuring as soon as Benjamin Kalu (APC, Abia) introduced the motion, which he jointly sponsored with the Deputy Majority Leader, Peter Akpatason, the Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu and others.
Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila who was presiding quickly intercepted that, “I can understand why you are murmuring but the body of the motion already takes care of your worries. I had a little glance of the motion”.
When the Speaker put a question for members to vote on whether the matter was urgent and important enough for the House to take immediately, majority of members responded in the negative as they thundered “nay”.
Gbajabiamila after consultations with Kalu and some other sponsors of the motion, instructed him to clearly cite the title of the motion for members’ understanding.
Accordingly, Kalu said the was on the: “urgent need to quarantine and evacuate stranded Nigerians in China”. This again elicited another round of murmuring and laughter.
The Speaker again waded in by explaining that “perhaps what Honourable Ben (Kalu) wanted to say is ‘evacuate and quarantine’, you have managed to confuse the mover of the motion”.
The Speaker further explained that: “nobody wants to bring them (the stranded Nigerians) back to infect people here, so let’s hear the motion first, and the prayers. If we don’t like it, we can kill it at that point”.
Even when the motion was finally seconded by Tajudeen Yususf (PDP, Kogi), majority of members still voted in the negative and it was therefore stepped down.
James Kwen, Abuja
