Majority Of Borno Assembly Members Behind Gov. Shettima Speaker

GOVERNOR KASHIM SHETTIMA OF BORNO STATE PRESENTING THE 2014 APPROPRIATION BILL TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY, HON. ABDULKAREEM LAWAN.

Following fears that Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State may be impeached, Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Abdulkareem Lawan, yesterday said he and most members of the Assembly are fully behind the governor, noting that at the moment, their main concern is how to restore peace in the state and put an end to the incessant killings.

Lawan, who spoke to a Daily Trust correspondent from Makkah in Saudi Arabia, where he travelled to for the Lesser Hajj, said the claim by the House Majority Leader, Idrissa Jidda, was entirely his own personal opinion as it does not reflect the position of any of the remaining 27 members of the House.

It was learnt that a former governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff, who recently confirmed that he had dumped the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had been given a mandate and resources to plot the impeachment of Governor Shettima and also prevail on the Yobe State Governor, Ibrahim Gaidam, to dump the APC for the PDP.

Borno Assemblys Majority Leader on Sunday said that most of his colleagues, who are now in the APC, would follow Sheriff to the PDP.

But the Speaker said, What Jidda said is just his personal opinion and not the position of the House.

He added: The leadership and members of the Borno State House of Assembly are one hundred per cent behind Governor Kashim Shettima; we are not moving anywhere. We are fully behind him. I know the opinion of more than two-third of the members, I dont know the opinion of the House Leader and he is free to go to any party of his choice. We are in democracy, but he shouldnt speak for others, he should speak for himself.

If what I read in Daily Trust is what the leader said, then he told an outright lie, that I can say. The issue he referred to is not even on our minds; what dominates our minds as members is how to support the state and federal government to restore peace in Borno State. We are far more worried about the killings and destructions in Borno State and not politics of 2015. Most of us are here in Saudi Arabia and we are seriously praying for peace in Borno and for the stability of the state. That is what we have been doing since 2011 and that is what should bother any true Borno man or Nigerian. We have worked very closely with the governor and we have supported him with the right appropriations to take measures that have helped in bringing relative peace to some parts of the state. We are working round the clock with the governor; always creating the legislative framework that the executive arm needs in our joint effort to address the insurgency problems.

I dont see how I can stop supporting Governor Kashim Shettima, who has been doing everything humanly possible to address the problems since he came in. We have been having a very respectable and efficient legislature-executive relationship in Borno. We have not had a single misunderstanding, the Speaker explained.