Assembly crisis: Oshiomhole, Fayose exchange hot words

Edo State governor, Adams OshiomholeEdo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole and his Ekiti State counterpart, Governor Ayodele Fayose, on Thursday exchanged hot words over the state of the legislature in their respective states.

Edo While Oshiomhole told Fayose not to drag his (Oshiomhole) name into the “political gangsterism that has become peculiar with the Ekiti State Governor,” the Ekiti governor said his Edo counterpart lacked the moral right to question developments in Ekiti when he had not managed well the crisis in his state legislature.

The Edo governor, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Peter Okhiria, said there was no crisis in the Edo State House of Assembly, and that 15 of the 24-member Assembly were members of the All Progressives Congress, while the other nine were of the Peoples Democratic Party.

He explained that out of the nine PDP members, three were on suspension while the seat of another member had been declared vacant.

But Fayose, who also reacted through his Special Adviser on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, on Thursday, insisted that Oshiomhole allegedly perpetrated illegality by shifting the sitting of the Edo Assembly to the Government House and that he should face the administration of his state and stop meddling in the affairs of Ekiti.

Okhiria’s statement read, “We find it utterly laughable and as the height of political childishness for the Ekiti State governor to hide behind his media aides and seek to drag the name of the Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, into his crude gangster tactics, which he has re-introduced into Ekiti politics less than two months after assuming office.

“If the Ekiti governor is too lazy to read and too politically-illiterate to know what is happening in Edo State House of Assembly, we expected his psychedelic media aides to simply shut their loud mouths rather than behave like capering neophytes.

“Even a kindergarten knows that 15 is greater than 5. So if five PDP members decide to sit with three suspended members and another, whose seat was declared vacant, in a chamber which is undergoing renovation, then we can at best regard that as the height of crass legislative irresponsibility.

“It is ridiculous to even contemplate that the Ekiti governor and his media aides do not know that 15 is greater than five. For sure, they seem engrossed with their stomach infrastructure mantra, such a dubious contraption which can only be contrived by an ideologically-clueless and gluttonous administration.

“But for the kind of democracy we practice in Nigeria, where the PDP promotes and condones all manners of illegalities, inanities and shenanigans which have become the second nature of that party, Ayodele Fayose would have been cooling off his heels in gaol rather than brandishing the appellation of being a governor.

“We are thoroughly ashamed that Ekiti, hitherto known as the fountain of knowledge, is being reduced to a mindless bubble by a man running her affairs without a discernible direction like a drowning man clutching desperately at flotsam.”

Olayinka’s statement, sent to The PUNCH, said in part, “Is it proper for a state House of Assembly to sit in the Government House? Should a state House of Assembly complex be put under lock and key for six months? And can actions taken at the sitting of a House of Assembly held inside the Edo State Government House be said to have the stamp of legality?

“Here we are with a supposed progressive comrade governor perpetuating illegalities in Edo State with lawmakers of his party, APC, sitting exclusively in the Government House where he resides with his wife and children; and instead of his aides to remove the timber in their boss’ eyes, they are getting concerned with the toothpicks in another person’s eyes.

The reality is that whether the APC lawmakers are 15 or 5, the lawmakers cannot sit anywhere else apart from the state House of Assembly. Or are they saying that the National Assembly can also relocate to Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos?

“It is our advice that Governor Adams Oshiomhole should solve the problems in the Edo State House of Assembly and stop meddling in the Ekiti State affairs because on June 21, 2014, the people elected their governor in person of Ayodele Fayose, and millions of APC evil machinations cannot stop him from governing Ekiti State for four years.”