By Nuel Suji, Abuja – The Speaker of the House of Reprensatives, Yakubu Dogara has finally unveiled the names of chairmen and vice-chairmen of standing and special committees of the House.
The announcement came five months after the inauguration of the 8th session of the National Assembly.
New committees have been added to the existing 91 set up in the last Assemby to accommodate diverse interests in the sharing of offices which is usually a knotty issue for the leadership of the parliament.
Except for the Public Account committee which the Nigerian Constitution specifically allocated to the opposition party, other committees are shared across interests and parties.
At the plenary, Thursday, Dogara unfolded a list 97 committees in which the majority party APC clinched 48 committee chairmanship positions to PDP’s 45 while the All Progressives Grand Alliance APGA and the Social Democratic Party SDP got a committee chairmanship positions each.
For the vice chairmanship positions, APC got 55 slots to PDP’s 39.
The chairmanship of the Niger Delta Affairs Committee is the only one out of the 97 yet to be filled according to the Speaker.
The Speaker’s main and most visible supporter in the run-up to the Speakership election, Rep Abdulmumin Jibrin (APC Kano) is chairman House Committee on Appropriation.
Similarly, the committees on Petroleum (Upstream) and Petroleum (Downstream) are chaired by members from two oil producing states namely: Akinlaja Joseph (PDP Ondo) and Victor Nwokolo (PDP Delta).
Former Committee Chairman in charge of Media, Zakari Mohammed, is now handling Committee on Basic Education; while Oladele Kayode (APC Ogun) chairs the House Committee on Financial Crimes while Ladipo Adebutu (PDP Ogun) heads the House of Reps Committee on Rural Development.
Significantly, ranking members also got fair share in the committee allotment.
The House, Public Accounts, went to Kingsley Chinda (PDP-Rivers State).
Some of them retained their previous portfolios. they are Nnena Ukeje (Foreign Affairs); Jones Onyeriri (Banking and Currency); Nkiruka Onyejiocha (Aviation); Mohammed Munguno (Agriculture); Shehu Shagari (Judiciary); Nicholas Mutu (NDDC); and Aminu Suleiman (Education, Tertiary).
Dogara said that the announcement of the standing committees was done after due consideration
Newly created Committees include the Internally Displaced Persons amongst others.
It be recalled that in the 7th assembly the committees were 91.
