Abuja, Dec. 21, 2022 – Femi Gbajabiamila, the Speaker of House of Representatives, has dissociated the House from the N89 trillion stamp duty allegation against key officials of government spearheaded by Mohammed Kazaure, its member
Kazaure has alleged that over N89 trillion of stamp duty proceeds is missing and accused some key government officials as being responsible.
Gbajabiamila told State House correspondents in Abuja on Tuesday that the House was not involved in the stamp duty controversy and would not want to be drawn into it.
He said that Kazaure and his team were working independently of the House.
“Kazure, from my understanding, he’s working with whoever he’s working with. If it necessitates the House coming in, we will come in. If he has an official function, he should go ahead and do his work. But this has nothing to do with National Assembly. Not that I know of.
“It was not based on a motion from the National Assembly. I believe he said he had the executive authority to do what he was doing. If that be the case, I mean, then, it’s got nothing to do with the National Assembly,” he explained.
Gbajabiamila said that Kazaure had not offended the character of the House nor any of its members to necessitate any negative reaction.
“The House can only call Kazure to order to the extent that he is impugning on the integrity of the House or individuals or leadership of the House that have nothing to do with what he’s doing.
“I think it’s important to separate the two. If he has the mandate to do something, that’s on him. When it came up, we asked members of the executive, and they said they were not aware of any mandate nor such mandate has been withdrawn.
“I don’t want to get into it except to the extent that he tries to impugn on the integrity of members of the House. And that’s a no-no. We have nothing to do with this,” he said.
On his meeting with Buhari, Gbajabiamila said: “It’s the regular routine discussions on state matters and of national interest. I haven’t seen the President in a little while. He’s been away. He just got back.
“But more importantly, we had to discuss issues surrounding state matters.”
“Things have come up in the last few weeks. I’m sure you know some of these things. And I just wanted to get his perspective on them and give him mine and the National Assembly’s perspective and position on those matters. And we had a fruitful discussion.
“Well, I wasn’t actually intending to talk to the press. It was just a discussion between the President and me, but of course, there were issues around cashless policy, issues around elections and violence that seem to be erupting here and there and a couple of other very important matters as well.”
He said the lawmakers will speed up the passage of the 2023 budget, return briefly in January and take a break to embark on election campaigns.
“We’re going to be rounding up our session. And of course, you know, when we resume in January, it’s going to be just barely five weeks before elections.
“So, we’re probably going to have very little time to sit with maybe about a week to 10 days before we all go for campaigns and elections.
“In that one week to 10 days, we intend to cram in a lot. For now, we’re going to pass the budget on Thursday,” he said. (GBN)
