Featured, Politics
–
The political tension in Ekiti State assumed another height on Thursday, November 20, when seven members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the state House of Assembly impeached Adewale Omirin, speaker of the House and replaced him with Dele Olugbemi
| By Olu Ojewale | Dec. 1, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT |
POLITICAL tension in Ekiti State is assuming a dangerous trend. The current political instability in the state is happening less than two months after human and business activities were almost paralysed for two weeks over political violence which erupted in which one person was killed in the state. Unlike the last time when the state judiciary was put under siege by violent attacks, the state House of Assembly is now the one moving towards implosion. The crisis in the house worsened with the removal of Adewale Omirin as speaker of the House by seven members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and was replaced him with Dele Olugbemi, on Thursday, November 20. Omirin belongs to the All Progressives Congress, APC, which has 19 members in the House.
The current crisis followed the action of the seven PDP members who held a sitting at the House on Monday, November 17, and approved the list of commissioners, aides as well as the reconstitution of the caretaker committees in the councils as requested by Governor Ayodele Fayose. During the process, the 19 APC members in the state were allegedly shut out and prevented from taking part in the decision.
Apparently displeased, Omirin described the actions of the seven PDP legislators as illegal and condemnable. He vowed to challenge the matter in courts. On Wednesday, Omirin disclosed that he had petitioned President Goodluck Jonathan and the National Assembly over the matter, asking them to caution the PDP legislators against heating the polity in the state. “I sent the same petition to President Jonathan so that the world would know what is happening in Nigeria,” he said. Omirin also promised to challenge the action of the seven legislators in courts.
Omirin said that before the House could sit if the speaker was not available, by law, majority members would write to the speaker of the need to sit and if approved, a speaker pro-tempore would be appointed to conduct the business of the day. Besides, he said: “Mondays, according to the House Standing Rule, is for the parliamentary where reports by members from their constituencies are reviewed and agenda set for the week’s sittings at the plenary. But against the rule of the House, seven PDP members led by armed policemen and thugs bundled the clerk of the Assembly to his office and at gun-point forcefully removed the mace from his office to illegally conduct the plenary where they approved the reconstitution of the care-taker committees in the councils and confirmation of the commissioners.
But from investigation, it became apparent that Omirin had a greater thing to worry about. His position was on the line. According to sources, the PDP caucus in the state assembly with the backing of Governor Fayose, had started planning to remove him from office as speaker in what one of the caucus members described as a way to balance the power sharing arrangement in the state. This is largely because Omirin comes from Ekiti South Senatorial District, as Olubunmi Eleka, deputy governor, while Fayose is from Central. Hence, the caucus decided to sacrifice the Omirin, especially because of his opposition to Fayose.
In view of this, Adeyinka Adeloye, a member of the PDP caucus who was also one of the six APC lawmakers who defected to the PDP, said the people should expect a change of leadership in the House to alter the power configuration of the state. Adeloye said that the standing order of the House recognised the power sharing arrangement of the principal officers–in line with the senatorial districts they come from. “The House has the power to change leadership and there is no novelty about this. Remember the Second Assembly had four speakers and the Third Assembly had two and if this happens again, it is not something new. But the whole thing depends on the leadership of the speaker. If the speaker has the acumen, the creativity, he can still hold fort. We were in the APC together before and he should not be crying foul now.”
Adeloye denied the allegation that the PDP lawmakers had been bribed to impeach Omirin. “The people of my constituency voted for Fayose that is simply indicating that they wanted change and the bribery issue does not arise at all,” he said.
Taiwo Olatunbosun, publicity secretary of the state APC, warned that the state was sliding into chaos and anarchy. Olatunbosun accused the Fayose government of systematic “decimation of the judiciary and the legislature” in the state. The former commissioner of information in the state reasoned that the blackmail of the APC lawmakers by Fayose’s loyalists set the tone for the latest crisis in the state.
The 19 APC lawmakers, who did not participate in the screening of Fayose’s appointees were said to have been bribed to shun the exercise. But Olatunbosun denied this, saying it was sheer blackmail, illogical and untrue.
“There are rules and procedures guiding screening and ratification of nominees by the House. Fayose’s commissioner-nominees were not screened, their resumes were not scrutinised and we don’t know if their credentials are genuine,” he said.
The APC spokesman said the police could not be exonerated from the “illegality” carried out on Monday, November 17. He accused the police of culpability for giving security cover to the seven lawmakers who sat on the day, saying the police action encouraged the desecration of the Assembly by the PDP lawmakers.
This allegation was denied by Victor Babayemi, police spokesman in Ekiti State. Babayemi said the police did not take sides with any party but carried “out its constitutional and statutory functions of forestalling the breakdown of law and order.” He also said contrary to the APC allegation, the police deployed in the Assembly complex did not turn back any legislator during the sitting.
The seven PDP lawmakers and three unidentified persons said to lawmakers, allegedly ratified Fayose’s list of appointees for commissioners, chairman and members of caretaker committees for the 16 local governments.
The commissioner-nominees and caretakers were sworn in on Monday by Fayose, few minutes after the purported ratification. The lawmakers were allegedly driven to the House in a heavily guarded Toyota Coaster bus. Some already confirmed special advisers of Fayose were said to have been seen at the premises of the House monitoring proceedings. The House screened and ratified the three commissioner-nominees and granted the governor power to appoint 12 special advisers who are to function as members of the cabinet. Immediately the confirmations were concluded, Dele Olugbemi, who was appointed by the House as a speaker pro-temporal, adjourned sitting. Olugbemi claimed that those who sat were 10 in number, but there are only seven known PDP lawmakers in the House, including six of those who defected from the APC the day Fayose was sworn into office.
Ahead of the controversial sitting, Governor Fayose had been at loggerheads with the Assembly over its refusal to sit and approve his nominees for different positions. So far, Governor Fayose has refuted all allegations that he was behind the move. Speaking in Ado-Ekiti, state capital, on Tuesday, the governor said he would not dabble into the affairs of the House of Assembly just as he described the APC as “being hypocritical.
— Dec. 1, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT
|
Tags:
