Gombe State House of Assembly Tuesday removed the Speaker of the House, Hon. Abubakar Sadiq Ibrahim and replaced him with Hon Abubakar Mohammed as the new Speaker.
Similarly, the Majority leader of the House, Samuel Marcus was removed and replaced with Terminal Gayle while Said Mohammed was elected as new Deputy Chief Whip to replace the former Chief Whip, Yahaya Kaka.
The Chief Whip of the House, Hon. Musa Buba who briefed the press on behalf of the House said the removal of the former Speaker was in the exercise of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.
According to him, 16 members of the House out of the 24 passed a vote of no confidence against the former Speaker.
He dismissed the insinuations that they were being sponsored saying the decision of the House is in the common interest of the state.
But the new Speaker, Abubakar Mohammed who refused to make comment on what led to the removal of his predecessor said the change in leadership of the House is to ensure that the of the state get what they deserve in terms of legislation.
“I want everyone to know that what happened today is in the best interest of our constituents and the entire people of Gombe state. We took this action in order to ensure that our people got what they deserve in terms of legislation,” he said.
Earlier, the Chief Whip who spoke on behalf of the House denied the insinuations that they were being sponsored by an external force to remove the former Speaker.
“I can tell you that it is not true. We simply exercise one of our numerous constitutional responsibilities under section 92 subsection 2c. We just impeached the Speaker by passing a vote of no confidence on him. You know we are under oath; there is a breach of laws by the former Speaker which we cannot disclose here so we removed him. No, we are not being sponsored by anybody. We are responsible people elected by our people,” he said.
Efforts to get the former Speaker’s reaction on the incident proved abortive as he refused to pick calls placed to him and reply to a short message and WhatsApp message to him.