Tambuwal, in an interview with Voice of America (VOA), monitored in Kaduna yesterday, said the demand was anchored on the erroneous belief that the party was instrumental to his emergence as speaker.
He added that although he was a member of the party, he became the speaker despite the fact that he was not the party’s choice due to the support of opposition lawmakers and other Nigerians.
The speaker, who has been having a running battle with the ruling party and the presidency since he defected to the APC on October 28, said the wide support he got made it possible for him to defeat House Leader, Hon. Mulikat Adeola-Akande, whom the PDP had presented for the position.
The PDP, in line with its zoning policy, had zoned the speakership to the South-West while the North-East was to produce the deputy speaker. However, some PDP members, egged on by lawmakers from the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), one of the legacy parties that formed the APC, had ganged up to violate the PDP zoning policy by endorsing Tambuwal, from the North-West, for speakership while Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, from the South-East, emerged the deputy.
‘’The mistake people are making is by saying the PDP made me the speaker. The PDP candidate was Hon Mulikat Akande-Adeola. Although I was in PDP at that time, I was not the party’s candidate.
It was legislators of other parties and other Nigerians that presented me as a candidate. And I contested and won,” Tambuwal added. Shedding more light on the crisis that trailed his defection, he dismissed the linkage between his new membership of APC and the turmoil in the House.
He said: “People should not forget that the powers that be wanted to arrest me even on June 6, 2011, when the House was inaugurated. So, the crisis is not about my defection but it was brought out by those who think that only they can do and undo.” The speaker also said a contingent of special policemen was deployed in the National Assembly in order to prevent him from entering the House chambers on November 20.
According to him, the policemen that prevented him and fellow legislators from entering the National Assembly and subsequently throwing tear gas canisters at them were not the regular ones deployed to guard the parliament. “The policemen that were deployed on that day were not those that used to work with us.
They were new people who were brought in to do what they did on that day. That was when the real motive came out; contrary to the explanation that the police deployed their personnel because of security reports that thugs will storm the National Assembly, the deployment was aimed at stopping me from entering the House chambers and presiding over the day’s proceedings,” he stated.
The speaker faulted the argument that if the policemen acted illegally by throwing tear gas at the legislators, the lawmakers were also wrong to have jumped the fence to gain entry into the National Assembly. “A man does not forcibly enter his own house. If there is a thief inside or someone who intends to hurt your family is in your house, even if he is in uniform and you did not authorise him to enter, what do you do? The lawmakers committed no offence,” he stated.
Source: New Telegraph
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