On Tuesday, the House of Representatives, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to give directive to Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment, to act according to existing laws on the planned Special Public Works (SPW) programme.

The House of Representatives resolved that the Nigeria Constitution does not recognize the office of the Minister of State and also directed Zainab Ahmed, the Minister of Finance, not to release funds contrary to that resolution.

The resolution followed a motion of urgent public importance moved by Toby Okechuckwu, the Deputy Minority Leader, on Tuesday.

Recalled that both the National Assembly and Festus Keyamo, the Minister of State (Labour) have been at daggers drawn over the implementation of the N56billion special works programme.

Moving the motion, Okechuckwu said that 202 appropriation law recognizes “the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) Act as the implementation agency.”

He added that “Minister of State” is not a creation of Section 145 (1) of the 1999 Constitution. This may therefore be the reason for the refusal of the Minister of State to be guided on the method adopted by Parliament for its proceedings and his assertion that “only Mr. President can stop our work”, not our laws nor our institutions.”

Also speaking on the motion, Uzoma Abonta from Abia State condemned the executive for disregarding existing laws by adopting short term interventions.