Benue Lawmakers Hatch Plans To Oust Speaker Over His Legality As A Member Despite Court Ruling Delimiting His Constituency Into Two By INEC.

There was drama on the floor of the Benue State House of Assembly yesterday when some members pushed to oust the Speaker, Hon Terkimbi Ikyange over a court ruling.

Recall that the Federal High Court sitting in Makurdi ordered the enforcement of its judgment delimiting the Speaker’s constituency, Ushongo Constituency, into two by INEC to become the Ushongo and Mbagwa state constituencies. Consequently, it ordered INEC to withdraw the Certificate of Return it previously issued to Hon. Terkimbi Ikyange, who is the member representing the people of Ushongo at the State House of Assembly and to conduct elections within 90 days into the two constituencies.  

According to Benue.com.ng,trouble started when the Minority Leader, Hon. Kester Kyenge raised a motion seeking clarification on the legality of the Speaker to preside over the house despite the court ruling. 

The session which was just before the Governor Samuel Ortom’s budget presentation to the Assembly became very rowdy and was heading for the worst before Majority Leader and member representing Makurdi-South constituency, Barr. Benjamin Adanyi doused the tension in the favour of the Speaker.
Responding, the embattled Speaker insisted that the court ruling in no way affected him as been insinuated and that he is still a honourable member representing Ushongo State Constituency and by extension the Speaker of the House. He therefore ruled that debates concerning his position as Speaker will no longer be entertained on the floor of the house. 

Meanwhile, the House approved the request by Governor Samuel Ortom to extend the implementation of the 2015 budget to March, 2016.
The Governor said the request was to enable the executive utilise some funds like the N10 billion for infrastructure and N2 billion for agriculture which was sourced and contained in the supplementary budget earlier approved by the house.

Source Benue.com.ng