Plateau speaker bows to pressure, swears in lawmakers 10 months after judgment

Gabriel Dewan, the Speaker of Plateau State House of Assembly, on Wednesday inaugurated five remaining All Progressives Congress, (APC) House of Assembly members returned by the Court of Appeal in November, 2023.

The Assembly, who had last week announced a recess, had to invoke Order 5 of the House Rules to enable them seat and inaugurate the new members.

The five members sworn-in were Yakubu Sanda, former Speaker, representing Pengana in Bassa State Constituency; Owen Dagogot, Quaan’pan North State Constituency; Theodore Maiyaki, Quaan’pan South State Constituency; Dalyop Gyang, Jos South State Constituency and Dachung Dadong of Riyom State Constituency.

While congratulating the new members, the Speaker said he was happy that no vacancy would exist again in the House of Assembly and every Constituency was fully represented in the State House.

He said with a full House, nothing would be left undone because it was time for governance and if any Constituency was not represented well, the Constituents should hold their representative responsible.

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Dewan said they would speak with one voice as Plateau State Parliament and advocate a Ministerial slot for Plateau State from the Federal Government.

Theodore Maiyaki, one of the newly-inaugurated members, who spoke with journalists after the inauguration, assured people that their coming would add value to Legislative business in the State.

He also assured of supporting their various Constituencies with basic needs and Government policies through laws that would complement the Executive efforts.

With the inauguration of these members, the Plateau State House of Assembly was full with a total of 24 members from the 24 State Constituencies. The House has 22 members from All Progressives Congress (APC), One legislator from Labour Party (LP) and one member from Young People’s Party (YPP).

It will be recalled that the Court of Appeal which sat in Abuja had in November 2023 sacked all the 16 members of the State House of Assembly elected on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) on the grounds that the party had no structure (Party Executives) to nominate them as candidates.

It is not clear why the inauguration is coming late, but there were speculations in some quarters that the APC members-elect were not in agreement with the terms presented to them by the PDP-led Government, but the presure from the APC prompted the Speaker to bow to pressure and were sworn-in on Wednesday.