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Etteh and her deputy, Babangida Saidu Nguroje, and others had been indicted by a probe panel of the House over the award of contract to renovate the residence of both officers. There have been widespread calls for her impeachment or resignation since.
Newsmen learnt that Ali who held another meeting with some senators in the office of Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, the Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters, also used the occasion to talk to the members of the upper chamber about the screening of the ambassadorial nominees presented to the Senate by President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua.
According to reports, Ali said the position of the party is that members in the National Assembly should rally round the Speaker, stressing that from the report of the ad-hoc committee, it was the bureaucrats in the National Assembly and not the Speaker that should take the blame for whatever might have gone wrong.
Ali who met with the officers in Ita-Giwa’s office at the basement of the White House reportedly called on the PDP caucus leaders in both chambers to ensure that the party was not put to shame, saying more meetings would still be held with the members of the party in the National Assembly so as to prevail on them, particularly those in the House of Representatives, to drop the idea of impeaching of the Speaker and her deputy. The chairman reportedly stated that as soon as the House reconvened on October 16, the party would meet with the caucus to remind them of the position of the party on the matter.
Ali, sources hinted, also discussed the screening of the ambassadorial nominees and stressed the need to begin the exercise without delay. He discussed criticisms by a cross-section of the country about some names and stressed the need for the leadership of the National Assembly to remain focused adding that the position of the leader of the party was also the position of all members.
However, a member of the opposition in the House, otherwise called "Integrity Group," John Halims Agoda had said that the issue on the floor of the House involving the Speaker had gone beyond party level.
Agoda who spoke with newsmen on the telephone in Abuja said the matter was now that of the House of Representatives and the entire country. He said the report of the investigation panel was already before the House and the 11 issues raised were so important that they could not be swept under the carpet. Agoda, who is the Chairman of the House Committee on Air Force, said the report of the panel had vindicated the position of the group that the matter was not personal but that of the collective integrity of the House.
Mrs. Funke Egbemode, the Special Adviser to the Speaker, maintained that contrary to insinuations in some quarters that the report of the panel indicted the Speaker, there was nothing in the entire report that indicated that. She said on the contrary, the report said that Madam Speaker did not award any contract and that the whole thing was handled by the management of the National Assembly.
The report is explicit and it is clear from the content that the Speaker did not award any contract. That is the work of the National Assembly management. Some people somewhere who are aggrieved by the transparent style of the Speaker are going out with the tissue of lies that the report has indicted the Speaker.
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