By Christiana Ekpa
Activities on the floor of the House of Representatives suffered major setback on Tuesday as more than 200 lawmakers openly protested against discrimination of allocation of seats.
This was just as the members equally protested against the allocation of offices base on favoritism
The House Committee on Welfare chaired Hon. Olawale Raji (APC-Lagos) was saddled with the responsibility of allocation of seats for members.
The aggrieved lawmakers who are mostly first timers frowned at the inconducive environment in one of the temporary chambers located on the third floor.
Some of the lawmakers who spoke on the development, alleged that some favoured first timers were moved to the Ground Floor against the earlier information that the allocation will be done on the basis of ranking.
According to the list issued by the Welfare Committee, 240 members were allotted for the Second Floor, while very few members including some first timers were allocated seats on the Ground Floor.
In a swift response to the development, the Speaker, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas who called for calm, assured that the main Chamber which is currently undergoing renovation would be completed before the House resume from the two months recess.
According to the list of allocation sighted by our reporter, some of the lawmakers moved to the Ground Floor are: Hon. Fatoba Steve Olusola (Ekiti), Hon. Mohammed Isa Anka (Zamfara), Hon. Ayuba Ganiyu Adele (Lagos), Hon. Lanre Okunlola (Lagos), Hon. Akume Regina (Benue), Hon. Amobi Ogah Godwin (Abia), Hon. Adamu Tanko (Niger), and Hon. Dasuki Abdussamad (Sokoto).
While confirming that there was an commotion during the plenary, Chairman, Ad-hoc Committee on Media, Hon. Khadijat Bukar-Ibrahim affirmed that there was a slight uproar during the plenary session.
She said: “Well, as far as the allocation of offices and seats are concerned, the allocation of offices is the responsibility of the Welfare Committee who have actually done their work and have allocated offices to each and every member.
“And as far as the seats are concerned, you know we’re in a temporary seating area, so there are not enough seats for all members to sit downstairs. So, some have to be accommodated upstairs.
“So, there was a slide uproar not a huge one about not hearing the mic from downstairs. So, people were aggrieved because they couldn’t hear Mr. Speaker from upstairs. So, they eventually joined us downstairs which was okay.
“And Mr. Speaker said people should occupy any seat they find downstairs, members should occupy any seat they find downstairs and everybody was happy,” Hon. Bukar-Ibrahim said.
