Honourable Nnamdi Chikere of the D Ground Constituency lost his seat in the Alexander Brown Hall Assembly at the Hall Assembly meeting that held on 8th April, 2023 via Google Meet.
Mr Chikere lost his seat following a motion moved by Honourable Obeya stating that Mr Chikere be found guilty of undermining the integrity of the Hall Assembly and be punished according Article Vi, Section 8, of the Alexander Brown Hall Constitution, which stipulates that Mr Chikere be deemed to have forfeited his seat in the Hall Assembly.
There was a series of events that led up to Mr Chikere’s forfeiture of his seat in the Assembly, the first of which was a letter sent on 28th March, 2023 by Mr Chikere to the ABH Assembly stating that he wished to “resign from his office with immediate effect”. However, less than 24 hours after, another letter was sent by him on 29th March, 2023 to denounce the previous letter of resignation “purportedly written by him” as he claimed he had written it under duress.
When called to speak on the matter, Mr Chikere cited his failure to resign from his floor prior to his notification of the Hall Assembly of said resignation (which is what the Constitution stipulates), as the reason why he decided to attempt to rescind his initial letter. However, he failed to prove that the letter was not written by him, or that he had indeed written it under duress.
Although a counter motion was raised by Honourable Uzor stating that Mr Chikere be referred to the Disciplinary Committee instead of being found guilty of undermining the integrity of the Assembly, the initial motion was passed after a simple majority vote.
The meeting also saw Honourable Babalola, the Chief Whip of the Assembly, who had been referred to an Adhoc Disciplinary Committee headed by Honourable Obeya for his absence at the last Hall Assembly meeting and failure to present a report of the Disciplinary Committee at that meeting, being fined a sum of ₦500 and mandated to send a letter of apology within 72 hours of the close of the meeting.
The Electoral Committee, headed by Mr Paul Ojeniran, also announced the lifting of the electoral ban and presented the schedule for the 2023 ABH Elections at the meeting. A notice has since been sent out to Brownites in this regard.
While we await with bated breath, the declaration of candidacy of Brownites for the various available positions, we can only hope that the electoral process will run more smoothly than it did in the past year, and that the best candidates emerge as winners in the end.
