APC shelves move to change House leadership

The All Progressives Congress may have shelved its plan to call for the change of leadership in the House of Representatives for now.
Contrary to expectation, the issue did not come up on Tuesday when the House resumed from the Christmas/New Year break.
The Minority Leader in the House, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, had threatened that his party will call for leadership change on resumption.
So also did the spokesman of the House, Hon. Zakari Mohammed, say same.
Sequel to the APC’s threat, the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party rushed to file a suit at an Abuja Federal High Court on Monday and got an interim order restraining the Speaker, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, from effecting the leadership change.
Justice Adeniyi Ademola ordered that status quo ante be maintained forthwith, pending the hearing of the substantive suit filed by the PDP and hearing of preliminary objections from the defendants on February 3, 2014.
It will be recalled that following the defection of 37 members of the PDP to the APC late last year, the latter party assumed the majority status in the lower chamber hence the call for leadership change.
Should it be carried out, all the Principal Officers of the House would lose their offices to the APC members.
Those that will be affected include the House Leader, Mulikat Adeola Akande; the Deputy Majority Leader; and the Chief Whip.
The Eagle Online gathered that the APC leadership thought it wise to again verify the exact number of APC members in the House on resumption as against the PDP’s.
A source in the party said key members fear some of those who defected earlier may have had change of minds following the resignation of the erstwhile National Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, and the emergence of a former Governor of Bauchi State, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, as the new chairman.
The source told The Eagle Online: “We need to be sure of the exact figure before we call for leadership change.
“So, what we have decided to do is to open a register where all APC members in the House will sign.
“Once we are sure that all the 37 new members are still with us, we will then write the Clerk of the House to inform him formally that APC is now the majority party in the House.
“He will also need to double check from his register and once that is done, the speaker has no choice but to carry out the leadership change.
“I must however say that it will not affect the speaker.”