By Ado Oyeyemi, Akure
Olamide Oladiji, the Speaker of the Ondo State House of Assembly, has expressed doubts about Deputy Governor Lucky Ayedatiwa’s willingness to engage in a genuine reconciliation.
Recall that the Assembly had served the deputy governor impeachment notice, for alleged gross misconduct, while Aiyedatiwa had approached the court to halt the impeachment process, just as the national leadership of the party set up a reconciliation committee to resolve the crisis.
The national leadership of the party, at a peace meeting with the parties in Abuja, directed them to sheath their sword and allow for an amicable settlement of the crisis.
Speaking in Akure, Speaker Oladiji remarked that Aiyedatiwa appeared unwilling to engage in a true reconciliation. He mentioned that during the reconciliation meeting, both Assembly members and the deputy governor were urged to withdraw all court cases.
His words: ”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. He is the one that took us to court, we cannot be reconciling 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 the deputy governor has not done that as he has appealed some of the rulings of the lower court.
“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 are following up the cases in the court”.
On the alleged division among the Assembly members, the Speaker said, ”I want to use this opportunity to inform the public that the House of Assembly is intact. Some days ago, we had our parliamentary meeting here at 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.
“At times, when there is 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”.
Oladiji also dismissed the allegation that the State has shut down and nothing is functioning as a result of the absence of Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu in the State.
According to him, Staff of the State government are being paid their salaries and the workers are going about their duties unhindered.
“As far as I am concerned, I will not subscribe to that because, if you are telling the public that the state is stagnant, some days ago,people just received their salary. The impress would be coming any moment from now.
“It is not a new thing for 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 election.
“So, the state is not stagnant, if you go to most of our construction sites, the Ministry of Works are working. All our Commissioners are working, they are distributing Palliatives 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”, the Speaker stressed.
He equally denied that the impeachment of the deputy governor was initiated by him and members of the Assembly.
“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 says? And that is what we are doing. READ ALSO:
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“if we are setting up any panel, it would have to come from the executive. If they can get 2/3 of the members of the executive, 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”, he said.
