It was all drama on Tuesday when spokesman of the House of Representatives, Hon. Benjamin Kalu, attempted to introduce a motion, seeking to urge the Nigerian government to evacuate stranded Nigerians in China, following the Coronavirus outbreak.
Hardly had the lawmaker concluded introduction of the motion, which he jointly sponsored with the Deputy Majority Leader, Hon. Peter Akpatason, the Minority Leader, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu and several others, that members however began to murmur in hush tones.
Sensing their discomforts, Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, who presided said, “I can understand why you are murmuring but the body of the motion already takes care of your worries. I had a little glance of the motion.”
When the speaker put a question for members’ votes on whether the matter was urgent and important enough for the House to take immediately, majority thundered “nay”.
The speaker after few minutes consultation with Kalu and some other sponsors of the motion, asked him to again clearly cite the title of the motion for members’ understanding, to which Kalu said it was on the “urgent need to quarantine and evacuate stranded Nigerians in China”. This again elicited another round of murmuring and laughter.
Gbajabiamila yet waded in by explaining that “perhaps what Honourable Ben (Kalu) wanted to say is ‘evacuate and quarantine’, adding; “you have managed to confuse the mover of the motion”.
When he asked Akpatason to second the motion as one of the sponsors, the lawmaker rather stated that “based on leadership consultation and what appeared to be a serious misunderstanding of the motion, we ask for the leave of the house to step it down”.
Still undaunted, the speaker said “nobody wants to bring them (the stranded Nigerians) back to infect people here, so let’s hear the motion first, and the prayers. If we don’t like it, we can kill it at that point”, and subsequently asked Elumelu; another cosponsor to second it, but the later declined, feigning to be having a non working microphone.
When the motion was finally seconded by Hon. Tajudeen Yususf, majority of members still voted in the negative.
