Committee Chair Who Summoned Benue, Zamfara Governors Over Insecurity Redeployed by House Speaker Abbas

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, has carried out a minor reshuffle of committee leaderships in the green chamber, resulting in the redeployment of Mike Etaba, the lawmaker who recently summoned the governors of Benue and Zamfara states over political unrest.

Etaba, who represents Obubra/Etung federal constituency in Cross River State, was removed as chairman of the House Committee on Public Petitions and reassigned to lead the Committee on Environment. His replacement is Bitrus Laori, the lawmaker from Adamawa who previously chaired the Committee on Cooperation and Integration in Africa.

The shake-up follows the controversial decision by the Public Petitions Committee to summon Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue and Governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara. The summons, based on a petition from a civil society group, the Guardians of Democracy and Rule of Law, also targeted the speakers and leadership of both state assemblies. The committee demanded that the governors and legislative leaders appear before it to explain why the federal legislature should not take over their assemblies due to alleged political crises.

However, the governors declined to appear, insisting that the National Assembly has no constitutional authority to summon sitting governors, who are protected by immunity and accountable to their respective state legislatures. Several civil society organisations backed the governors, warning that the committee was exceeding its powers.

The controversy escalated further when the Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria condemned the summons. The group’s chairman, Adebo Ogundoyin, described the action as a constitutional overreach and an infringement on the autonomy of state parliaments. He emphasized that the investigative powers of the National Assembly under Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution are limited to federal matters.

In the committee reshuffle, Billy Osawaru, a lawmaker from Edo State who previously served as deputy chairman of the Committee on Poverty Alleviation, was named as the new chair of the Committee on Cooperation and Integration in Africa, replacing Laori. The House has not offered a public explanation for the timing of the changes, but the move has drawn speculation about a possible connection to the controversy surrounding the summons.