The Integrity Group, on Sunday, said that the suit filed by 57 legislators against its members and the House of Representatives would not save the Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Etteh, from stepping aside.
The Leader of the group, Mr. Farouk Lawan, told journalists in Abuja that since no restraining order had been obtained by the lawmakers, a Speaker pro-tempore would definitely emerge on Tuesday.
He spoke just as some indigenes of Osun State under the aegis of Osun Leadership Forum asked Etteh to step down.
Lawan added that since the House rule on litigations was very clear, the suit by the 57 legislators could not �automatically� halt the House from conducting its legislative business.
He said that proceedings of the House on an issue could only be stopped if, in the Speaker�s opinion, going ahead would prejudice the hearing of the case .
Lawan argued that inasmuch as it was the Speaker that took the House to court, her view on the matter was a nullity because she had become partisan.
He said, �Taking our members and the House to court is a desperate attempt, which appears to us as the last catching of a straw by a drowning person.
�It will not deter the Integrity Group from ensuring the election of a Speaker pro-tempore who will preside over the deliberation of the David Idoko-led panel report.�
The 57 pro-Etteh lawmakers had on Friday in the suit asked a Federal High Court, Abuja to restrain the defendants from arbitrarily or forcibly stopping Etteh from exercising her statutory duties.
They are also seeking a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants or their agents from preventing the Speaker from �presiding over any plenary or other session of the House of Representatives.�
Joined in the suit were the Clerk of National Assembly, Alhaji Nasir Arab; the Acting Clerk of the House, Mr. Niyi Ajiboye; the Deputy Speaker, Alhaji Babangida Nguroje; and the House Leader, Mr. Tunde Akogun.
Our correspondents learnt that the group and the pro-Etteh legislators might meet on Sunday night on how a consensus candidate for the position of a Speaker pro-tempore would emerge.
The decision was said to have been reached at a meeting on Friday by the two camps.
It was gathered that a former Vice-President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme; the PDP National Deputy Chairman (South), Bode George; a former Minister of Finance, Alhaji Adamu Ciroma; and the Secretary of the PDP Board of Trustees, Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu, attended the meeting.
A source said that at the Friday meeting, the pro-Etteh lawmakers wanted the Speaker to preside over the selection of the Speaker pro-tempore.
He said that the members of the Integrity Group argued that the Speaker could not be trusted with the gavel on an issue she had an interest in.
However, there were strong indications that each of the camps might sponsor its own candidate, to be voted for on the floor of the House.
But another source told our correspondents on Sunday that 212 members of the House had as at Friday signed a register for the impeachment of Etteh.
The source claimed that more signatures would be obtained this week.
All the 25 Action Congress lawmakers from the South-West, are believed to have signed the register.
Also more than 20 out the 45 legislators who are members of the PDP caucus from the zone, have also signed the register.
It was gathered that Etteh had lost more lawmakers from the South-West as only 17 of them attended a meeting last Friday, where she allegedly begged them for support.
The meeting took place at Legacy House, former President Olusegun Obasanjo campaign headquarters in Abuja.
However, the Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Mr. Dino Melaye, has dared the Integrity Group to publish the list of those that had signed the register.
Maleye said he was convinced that the group would not have the number.
He said, �One thing is sure, they don�t have the number. Even if they were to have it, they would need 240 to impeach Madam Speaker.
�The Speaker will spend the next four years and nobody will stop that.�
Also on Sunday, the Osun Leadership Forum said it was imperative for the Speaker to step aside as natural justice dictated that she could not be a judge in her own case.
The forum, in a statement read to journalists by its President, Mr. Oladele Ademola, said, �Time is overdue for our sister, Hon. Patricia Olubunmi Etteh, Speaker of the House of Representatives, to step aside, and allow her colleagues to deliberate on the report of the investigative panel into the crisis.
�She is clearly under obligation to do this since this is the demand of justice that she cannot be a judge in her own case.�
Ademola said that Osun State should not be seen from the prism of some �errant ambassadors� because most of its citizens were adherents of due process and the rule of law.
The forum, however, demanded that if Etteh was eventually ousted, the post of Speaker must remain in the state.
It cited the replacement of Alhaji Salisu Buhari by Alhaji Ghali Na�Abba � both from Kano State � as Speaker in 1999 as a precedent.
It said, �Madam Speaker�s travails in the House are not without the involvement of the Peoples Democratic Party leadership.
�If Madam Speaker is not alone in this game of continuous adjournment style of crisis management, the question then is: What does she or those with her stand to gain?�
According to the forum, it sent emissaries to Etteh shortly before the October 17 session of the House when Dr. Aminu Safana died.
Asked whose interest he was representing, Ademola said it was that of the people of Osun State, who yearned for good governance and probity in public office.
Oct292007