As the battle for the leadership of the 10th House of Assembly gets tougher, the embattled majority leader of the House of Representatives, Alhassan Doguwa, Wednesday, said that he is qualified to contest for the position of the Speakership despite the ongoing murder case hanging on his neck.
Mr. Doguwa was dragged to Court for allegedly being the brain behind the death of a voter during the just concluded elections in Kano.
According to the lawmaker, he is covered by the principle of presumption of innocence until proven guilty, which gives him the right to contest for any position during the time of his trial.
Mr. Doguwa made the disclosure during his official declaration of intent to join the race for House of Reps Speakership, in Abuja.
Doguwa will be competing against Deputy Speaker Idris Wase (APC, Plateau), Yusuf Gagdi (APC, Plateau), Muktar Betara (APC, Borno), Sada Soli (APC, Katsina), Muktar Betara (APC, Borno) Tunji Olawuyi (APC, Kwara) and Abubakar Makki (APC, Jigawa) who have all declared interest.
Others are Tajudeen Abbas (APC, Kaduna), Aminu Jaji (APC, Zamfara), Ben Kalu (APC, Abia), and Miriam Onuoha (APC, Imo).
His words, “The principle of presumption of innocence until one is proven guilty covers me. It does not stop me whatsoever from vying for the position that I know I eminently qualify to vie for.
“I want Nigerians and my colleagues to join me in prayers so that by God’s grace we will get to know the truth of the matter.
“I must stress that a guilty man who is charged for a case like this would not have gone for a supplementary election and won the way I won the election.
“This rerun was conducted in immediate local government not even my home local government. Tudun Wada local government was where I had my rerun covering 13 poling units.
“I went back to the same people of Tudun Wada, offered and presented myself. I canvassed for 7,000 outstanding votes and at the end the people said this man remains our ambassador.”
“With due respect to the court and without being prejudicial to the position of the law, I want to say that I have obtained a public and political clearance from my people that I am still a worthy ambassador of my people — having won the election again at the supplementary election.
“Even when my state was unfortunately affected by what we call a political tsunami. My zone was a no-go zone. God and my people protected it for me.”
