The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Thursday named chairpersons for the house standing and special committees.
The standing committees were also increased from 96 to 105.
The decision to increase the committees was contained in a report submitted by an ad-hoc committee mandated to review the house standing order.
In the composition of the new committees, the speaker’s key loyalists were placed as heads of major committees such as Appropriation which is now chaired by Mukhtar Betara; Finance, James Faleke; Public Accounts, Oluwole Oke; Defence, Babajimi Benson and Army, Abdulrazak Namdas.
Others are NDDC, Tunji Ojo; NEDC, Khadija Bukar and Electoral Matters, Aishatu Dukku.
In terms of party affiliations, lawmakers of the ruling APC were appointed to 80 chairmanship positions. The main opposition PDP got 21 chairmanship positions. Others are APGA, 2; APM, 1; and AA, 1.
In the deputy chairmanship positions, the APC took 63 seats, leaving the PDP with only 26. Other minority parties shared 8.
Conspicuously left out were some ranking members of the PDP who are seen as loyalists of the former speaker, Yakubu Dogara.
They include Kingsley Chinda, Daniel Asuquo, Nkem Abonta and Tajudeen Yusuf amongst others.
Some of these ranking members who are currently serving their third or fourth term were left out while some first term members were made heads of important committees.
A surprised omission is Abdulmumin Jibrin, the Kano lawmaker who was the director-general of Mr Gbajabiamila’s campaign during the speakership race. He was neither made a chairman nor deputy chairman of any committee.
No reason was given for his omission.