THE Ekiti State House of Assembly is set to boil over perceived leadership and sundry issues following the change of government in the state.
This is just as members of the assembly have expressed anger over allegations that the Speaker, Adewale Omirin, had announced a recess of the assembly via a press statement.
The Speaker had alleged that the members were planning to remove him on Friday morning, prompting the closure of the assembly.
Omirin fingered lawmakers who defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic (PDP) on Thursday as the masterminds of the plan to remove him.
He claimed also in the statement, signed on his behalf by Mr Wole Olujobi, that “the defected six members of the APC in Ekiti House of Assembly have perfected plans to announce another Speaker from their camp tomorrow (Friday) morning.”
Omirin added in the statement that “Ekiti State is set for another crisis again as seven members plan to lord it over 19 members in a supremacy battle that will set the hands of the clock of progress in our state back.”
But the state government, in a reaction, described the unilateral closure of the assembly as a plot to execute the Plan B of the APC to frustrate the new administration of Governor Ayo Fayose.
According to an aide of the governor, Mr Lere Olayinka, by ordering that the Ekiti lawmakers should go on “one month recess,” Omirin was only acting the Plan B script of the APC, that is,“make Ekiti ungovernable for Fayose the way they made the state ungovernable for Segun Oni.”
It was gathered that the development caused Fayose to name most of his appointees special assistants.
He is said to have powers to make such appointments without recourse to the legislature.
It was also gathered that some of the current special assistants will become commissioners or Special Advisers when the assembly crisis is settled and its approval received for the statutory appointments.
The APC-dominated assembly is made up of 26 members with only one of the members from the PDP as of the time of the last governorship election in June.
The other member of the PDP in the assembly, Mrs Aduke Oriniowo, had defected to the APC before the election, thereby leaving only Mr Ajiblola Oyedele as the only PDP member going into the election.
With the defection of the six APC lawmakers, namely, Olowo Ajiboye (Oye II), Adeloye Adeyinka (Ikole I), Abeni Olayinka (Ado II), Fatunbi Olajide (Moba II), Olugbemi Joseph (Ikole I), Adeojo Felix Ayodele (Ekiti South West II), there are now seven PDP members in the assembly.
There are indications that nine others may have quietly joined the new government.
This situation is said to have set off the alarm with the Speaker.
Meanwhile, Saturday Tribune gathered from competent sources in the state that members of the assembly will likely meet outside the state this weekend to finalise plans to decide what moves to make on the assembly crisis.
As things stand, the current appointments by the governor are to ensure that governance doesn’t grind to a halt in the state, just as some members of the assembly have decried “the sudden unilateral closure of the House” and are currently moving towards challenging its legality.
The Fayose-led government had decried the closure of the assembly, describing it as a continuation of the plot by the APC to frustrate the government.
“After failing to realise his ambition of becoming Ekiti State acting governor (hoping that Fayose’s inauguration would not hold), Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Dr Wale Omirin, has ordered that Ekiti lawmakers should go on one month recess.
“The Speaker claimed that the seven PDP members in the House were plotting to impeach him and for this, Ekiti must be held to ransom.
“For the avoidance doubt, there is no plan from the state government to force the removal of the Speaker or anyone in the House of Assembly.
“Most importantly, election and removal of the Speaker and other principal officers of the House of Assembly are the prerogative of the House members, and not the duty of the executive arm of government.
“However, we are aware of the plan by the APC to frustrate the Ayodele Fayose-led government, using the APC-dominated House of Assembly. The plan is to prevent the governor from making statutory appointments like commissioners and special advisers as well as presentation and passage of the 2015 budget.
“Therefore, by ordering that the Ekiti lawmakers should go on “one month recess, Dr Omirin is only acting the Plan B script of the APC, that is, make the state ungovernable for Fayose the way they made it ungovernable for Segun Oni.
“However, we wish to assure the good people of Ekiti State that like their previous plans to subvert the will of Ekiti people, this APC Plan B, which is to frustrate the government, will fail,” Olayinka claimed in a statement.
(Nigerian Tribune)
