Lagos Female Lawmaker made to apologize for ''unruly' behaviour

The lawmaker representing Mushin Constituency 1 at the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adefunmilayo Tejuosho, on Monday apologised for the way she presented her rejection of a committee she was asked to chair last Monday.

She however said she had no apologies for rejecting the Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights, Public Petitions and Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission, LASIEC.

Speaker Mudashiru Obasa had last Monday announced chairmen of the committees, but Tejuosho, who felt she was not respected as one of the oldest members of the House, publicly rejected her committee.

She was asked to publicly apologize by some members of the house. 

“In his reaction, the Chief Whip, Rotimi Abiru said:

 “what transpired that day was not appropriate and it came after the Speaker had called for adjournment and was about to leave the chamber.

“There is a procedure for turning down any responsibility by a member. A formal letter should have been written to the Selection Committee of which the Speaker is the Chairman, but the matter should be allowed to go,” he said.

Also, Bisi Yusuf from Alimosho Constituency 1 said that Tejuosho should have followed the procedure of rejection, adding that, she should have accepted the Judiciary Committee given to her as a lawyer.

“She was given a whole arm of government, but she ridiculed the whole House,”

On his part, the chairman of the Committee on Information, Tunde Buraimoh, stated that the action of Tejuosho was an abuse on the leadership of the House calling it contempt of the House.

According to him, when the Speaker is speaking, others should not speak. He urged his colleagues to be mindful of their conducts on the floor of the House.

“We must do what we say, we need to stop this kind of vituperation or virulent behaviour. We may look into apologies or take appropriate action,” he said.

Given the opportunity to speak, Tejuosho apologised for the public show, but said she was not apologising for rejecting the committee because that was how she felt.

She also said she was not aware of any rule of the House that specified how to reject a committee.

“I rose up to reject the committee on Judiciary because I spoke to the Speaker about it before then and I expected him to get back to me on the issue. I felt disregarded about the whole thing.

“I want to apologise to the whole House about my behaviour after sitting on that day. I don’t have any apology for my rejection and I didn’t know any other way of turning down committee chairmanship,” she said.

Speaker Obasa, who said the House was openly violated by Tejuosho, agreed that there was no rule of the House on actually specifying how to reject committees.

“There is a procedure to reject the committee chairmanship or membership of the House. The news went virile on the social media and my attention was called to it,” he said.

PMNews