Lawan's sacking, not judgment on $620m bribe -Reps

House of Representatives on Wednesday said it sacked Mr. Farouk Lawan as Chairman, Committee on Education because it did not want to tie down the oversight duties of the committee.

Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Zakari Mohammed, who spoke on the matter, said the sacking was not a judgment that Lawan was guilty of his involvement in the $620m bribery saga.

Mohammed noted that the Committee on Education had many important agencies to supervise and could not continue to function without a substantive chairman.

He added that it would be inappropriate to allow Lawan to continue to preside over the duties of the committee while the case was already before the law courts.

Mohammed said, 'Lawan's case is an interesting one because the House has been lampooned severely.

'As we speak, the matter is in court. The question is how he will preside over the agencies now that the issues involved have not been resolved.

'As a House, we are not passing a judgment on him, but we need to do our oversight duties.

'There are two people involved in this $620m case, but only one person is being prosecuted. The law should be no respecter of persons.

'As a House, we have to put this behind us and move on.'

It could be recalled that the Speaker of the House, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, had last Thursday announced the removal of Lawan and replaced him with another lawmaker from Kano State, Mr. Aminu Suleiman. Meanwhile the House had placed Lawan on suspension since June last year, following the allegation by oil businessman, Mr. Femi Otedola, that the lawmaker collected $620m bribe from him.