Speaker Dogara Constitutes 97 House Standing Committees

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Thursday, October 22nd, 2015

Ayodele Afolabi, Abuja

After a long period of horse- trading which almost threw spanner into the wheels of the smooth running of the House of Reprensativess, Speaker Yakubu Dogara finally announced the list of constituted committees.

In what turned out to be keenly contested closed-door battle, the majority 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.

The chairmanship of the Niger Delta Affairs Committee is the only one out of the 97 yet to be filled according to the Speaker and for vice chairmanship positions, APC got 55 slots to PDP’s 39.

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 two committees regarded as among the ‘Juicier’ ones, Petroleum (Upstream) and Petroleum (Downstream) are chaired by members from the PDP, Akinlaja Joseph (PDP Ondo) and Victor Nwokolo (PDP Delta).

He reports further that 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.

The announcement came after the Thursday’s plenary session.

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.