PDP Reps Stage Walkout Over Twitter Ban

Some members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) caucus in the House of Representatives on Tuesday walked out of the House sitting when Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila ruled out of order, the leader of the party in the House on the issue of the ban on twitter by the Government.

The Speaker had earlier while welcoming members back to plenary mandated the joint committees on Communication, Information, Justice and National Security to investigate the legality of the ban and report back to the House.

However, PDP leader in the House, Kingsley Chinda (PDP, Rivers) said waiting for ten days for the committee to report back to the House would amount to the ban remaining for another ten days.

He said “Mr. Speaker, I stand on section 39 of the Nigerian constitution, section 19 of the Universal declaration on Human and Peoples right and article 9 of the African charter of Human and Peoples right.

“As a representative of the people, I have a source of communication with my constituents; I have a source of interaction with my leaders. But in moving this, I must, with all sense of responsibility commend the steps you took this morning concerning this issue of ban of twitter. It was very proactive, very timely.
“But my concern is that as a Nigerian and several other Nigerians out there, the implication is that for the ten days you have given that committee to work, this breach will continue. We don’t even know for how long our interaction with the Executive arm will last.

“While I agree with the submission of the leadership of this House completely, I will only want to add that for the breach of our fundamental human right, particularly the right to fair hearing, right to freedom of speech and expression, we should urge the Executive arm in the interim to reverse the ban pending our interaction with the Executive.”

But the Speaker ruled him out of order saying since the matter has been referred to a committee already, it was wrong for the matter to be revived again.

Speaker said,“Let me quickly refer you to order 9, rule 1 sub rule 6 of our rules which state that it shall be out of order to reconsider any specific question upon which the House has come to a conclusion during the current session except upon a substantive motion for rescission.

“This matter has already been sent to the committees to look at the issues you are talking about and will report to us within ten days. Even if you had brought a motion here, it would have been referred to a committee. We are not even sure if your motion would not have been killed. This day, we have saved the day. So you are ruled out of order.”

At this stage, all efforts by Chinda to be heard proved abortive with the House Leader, Alhassan Ado Doguwa and Chief Whip, Mohammed Tahir Mongunu asking him to be guided.
Chinda and some other members of the caucus however walked out of the plenary to address the press on their grievances, insisting that members of the PDP caucus in the House will continue to tweet in disregard to the ban, while some others kept shouting continue to tweet, continue to tweet.