The Speaker of Ondo State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Olamide Oladiji, on Friday, maintained that there is no division among members of the Assembly over the impeachment process of Deputy Governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa.
Oladiji who stated this while speaking with journalists in Akure, Ondo state capital, said the lawmakers are working together and following due process on the impeachment process of Ayedatiwa.
According to him, the lawmakers decided to revisit the impeachment process following the failure of the deputy governor to withdraw the suit instituted by him in court, despite assuring the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) that the suit will be withdrawn.
He disclosed that the national leadership had instructed the two parties to iron out their differences politically with the condition that all matters in court concerning the impeachment should be withdrawn first, but noted that the deputy governor was not only against the agreement but has also appealed some of the rulings of the lower court.
Oladiji said: “I want to use this opportunity to inform the general public that the House of Assembly is intact. About three days ago, we had our parliamentary meeting here (House 11 legislative quarters, Alagbaka, Akure,) because of the protest of the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN).
“We had about 23 members in attendance. We did so many things together here, if not because of this strike, which is not peculiar to Ondo State alone, it is nationwide, we would have continued our legislative businesses.
“I have been treating files since morning, and our members have been coming, if you go to the speaker’s lodge now, you would see about 15 members there, we are together.
“At times, when there’s a political tussle like this, there can be insinuations, rumours, but in the House of Assembly, we are together. We told ourselves that it is an institution, and the institution must be protected. So, we are together.
“We have started our oversight functions. We have concluded our familiarization visit. Like this morning, Committee on Lands visited the state Ministry of Lands, and they returned to give me the report here.
“To the public, most of these bloggers want to feed fat on the issues on ground. They are the one deceiving the public, telling all sort of stories that the House is this, it’s that. As far as I am concerned, we are together.”
He however, said that governance in the state has not been crippled as being peddled around in some quarters, saying, “as far as I am concerned, I will not subscribe to that because, if you are telling the public that the state is stagnant, yesterday people just received their salary.
“It is not a new thing for the head of Administration to man a local government, most especially when the state government is planning to conduct an election. Instead of bringing in another set of people, what they do is that, they instruct the head of Administration to take over the government, pending the time we would conduct our election.
“So, it is not a new thing. the state is not stagnant, if you go to most of our construction sites, the Ministry of Works, they are working. All our commissioners are working, they are distributing pallaitives in the 18 Local Governments, we are doing well.
“I don’t know where they get that from, there can be political tussle somewhere, that does not destroy the operation of governance, that does not hinder governance, people are getting their salary, they are getting their impress and the civil servants are doing their work.”
Reacting to the letter submitted to the Assembly by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) youths demanding constituting of medical panel to investigate the medical condition of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, the speaker described the authors of the letter as faceless, with no traceable contact.
According to him, “Most people do not really know what the Constitution says, as far as I receive the letter, but it is being submitted by faceless people. By the time I put a call across to them, nobody picked my call.
“Apart from that, if they are going to set up a panel, it is going to come from the executive, it is not from the House of Assembly.
“Like the issue of impeachment that is going on, people are now tracing it to House of Assembly, Mr. Speaker. It did not originate from the House of Assembly, the letter must come from the executive to the House of Assembly. By the time it comes to the House of Assembly, then we ask ourselves, what does the Constitution say? And that’s what we are doing.
“If we are setting up any panel, it would have to come from the executive. If they can get the 2/3 of the members of the executive, fine, and they would write us. By the time they write us, it is then we can now start working on it. Just like the one we did, as far as that of Deputy Governor is concerned, the executive wrote us, and we acted on that letter that they wrote us.
“We met the National Chairman, and he specifically asked me how do we commence reconciliation. I told him that the reconciliation process has to start from the deputy governor, the deputy governor has to start the reconciliation. How? He is the one who took us to court, we cannot reconcile ourselves when we have cases in court. Let him go to the court withdraw all these cases, then we would know that we are now in for genuine reconciliation.
“But in the process where those cases have not been withdrawn from the court, the court cases are still on, and we are telling ourselves that we are doing genuine reconciliation. Is that one genuine?.
“As far as the House of Assembly is concerned, we are not doing anything. The cases are in the court and we would follow due process. We believe in the court, as far as we are concerned, the matter is the court.
“He appealed some cases again, so we are in court, either favourable or unfavourable, then we will know what to do next. As far as we’re concerned now, we are doing nothing, we are following up the cases in the court.”
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