Reps swear in Benue lawmaker, finally

Representative of Benue states

She was sworn in by House Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, during plenary session on Tuesday, October 3, 2017.

The lawmaker is a replacement for Hon. Herman Hembe who was sacked by the Supreme Court in a June 23 ruling that adjudged Mato to be the legitimate winner of the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Mato's inauguration had been delayed for months, first for not completing documentation, and then later for a lawsuit that was filed against House Speaker, Dogara, by members of her constituent for delaying the inauguration.

After the delay prompted criticism against the House leadership of discriminating against the lawmaker, she told Pulse Nigeria that she had no such trouble with Dogara as they don't know each other too well.

She said, "I don't think there's a problem with the speaker. He doesn't know me, we're not that close, so he cannot have anything against me.

"When I recovered my mandate, most times, Mr. Speaker would be on one engagement or the other, so he was not on seat. So many times I went to the House, he was not on seat. Not that he has anything against me."

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She had also lamented that the vacumm was hurting her constituency as it didn't have any representative in the National Assembly for three months.