Assistant Politics Editor, DANIEL KANU, takes a look at the uncertain political developments in Ekiti State.
Confusion arising from rivalry among Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftains in Ekiti State continues to widen, taking in its trail a huge toll on the governance of the state that prides itself as Fountain of Knowledge.
The imbroglio took a turn for the worse, since the inauguration of Governor Ayo Fayose, last month.
Ayo Fayose
Although, it was expected that things would not be easy for the governor, given that his party, the PDP, is in the minority in the House of Assembly, the political crunch gets messier by the day, coming with it allegations and counter-allegations from the combatants at opposite ends of the divide.
There are, for instance, allegations of government-sponsored threat to peace, order, good leadership and good government, in the House of Assembly.
By Monday last week, media reports had alleged that seven PDP lawmakers, in a 26-member Assembly, had appointed Dele Olugbemi as protem speaker.
Perhaps, more curious was that the seven PDP members also sat last week Thursday, November 20, and claimed to have impeached the Speaker, Dr. Adewale Omirin.
Omirin talks tough
Omirin, who the remaining 19 members still recognise as the speaker, has faulted the appointment of Olugbemi, explaining that before the assembly could sit, if he was not available, by law, majority members would write him on the need for the exercise, insisting that the sitting by the PDP lawmakers was illegal.
Threatening court action, Omirin said the seven PDP members included the six APC legislators that defected to the PDP on the day Fayose was inaugurated as governor.
Said he: “Monday, according to the House Standing Rule, is a day for the parliamentary matters where reports by members from their constituencies are reviewed and agenda set for the week sittings at the plenary.
“But against the rule of the assembly, seven PDP members, led by armed policemen and thugs, bundled the clerk to his office, and at gunpoint removed the mace from his office to illegally conduct the plenary where they approved the reconstitution of the caretaker committees in the councils and confirmation of the commissioners.”
Since the uncertain development, APC has continued to allege that the seven PDP members in the House were joined by three persons whose identities were unknown to carry out the act. That has become a subject of controversy.
According to APC, PDP caucus connived with the governor to import the three ‘thugs’ to form a quorum during the sitting.
The party also alleged that on said Monday, November 17, a large number of armed policemen used an Armoured Personnel Carrier to block the entrance to the assembly, apparently allowing only the PDP lawmakers in.
Although the speaker did not show up, his deputy, Taiwo Orisalade, claimed that some APC lawmakers, including himself, were barred from entering the assembly premises by the policemen.
A statement by the speaker’s Special Adviser on Media, Wole Olujobi, alleged that the seven PDP lawmakers also attempted to pass resolutions to ratify the “many illegalities” by the governor.
The statement claimed that Fayose provided the seven members of the PDP with 300 armed riot policemen complete with APCs to conduct a plenary in the assembly to approve the reconstitution of the council caretaker committees and the confirmation of the commissioner-nominees without the 19 members of the APC in attendance.
The Monday exercise, according to Olujobi, was well rehearsed. “The first attempt was when they planned to storm the House with thugs to attack APC members with the aid of security agents to change the leadership of the assembly,” he alleged.
The second attempt, he said, was planned in a hotel where top members, both within Ekiti and outside, met to plan what was carried out.
The governor, he said, did a follow-up with threats and coercion, including freezing the accounts of the assembly, cutting of electricity supply from the Speaker’s Lodge and stopping statutory votes for the Speaker’s upkeep and protocol.
The APC national leadership, which also faulted the sitting, alleged that over 200 armed policemen offered protection to the seven PDP members of the assembly.
A statement by APC National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, called on the PDP led by President Goodluck Jonathan and the federal government to stop instigating crisis in APC-controlled states.
PDP takes on APC
While the APC continues to claim that three of the 10 people that effected removal of Omirin were not members of the assembly, PDP insisted that they were “members of the assembly”, stressing that what happened was in order.
PDP said that it was constitutional, that since the speaker and his deputy were “deliberately” absent to stall the proceedings of the day, there was a need for a protem speaker.
The party claimed that the House has become a tool being used by the APC to frustrate Fayose’s government, especially regarding appointment of commissioners.
PDP caucus used the occasion to confirm the appointment of three commissioner-nominees and caretaker committees for the 16 Local government areas of the state.
The party claimed that what transpired was a continuation of the House sitting where members read the letter of the governor requesting the screening and confirmation of his commissioner-nominees.
Defending the composition of the caretaker committees, the governor said the APC members had no moral justification to query his action, since his predecessor, Kayode Fayemi, did similar thing when he came on board in 2010.
“The APC are hypocrites. When l was in government in 2006, l put up elected council officials, former Governor Segun Oni did his best by putting up elected council officials. But when Fayemi came in 2010, they went round the councils and beat up all the elected council officials and in the process, a life was lost.
“Fayemi was in the saddle for four years and he never conducted election at the local government level,” Fayose said.
Fayose in the eye of APC
In the verdict of Ekiti APC, Fayose’s government, which is barely one month, has brought pains to the people.
In a statement signed by its Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, the party said while it was the practice in other states to celebrate their governor’s achievements after a month in office, the experience in Ekiti “is that of gloom, anger, frustration and disappointment by the people”.
APC said rather than offer hopes of better livelihood to the people as promised during his campaigns, the governor had been playing “politics of deception”.
Ekiti on trial
Public affairs analyst, Ogubundu Nwadike, said what is happening in Ekiti should not form the basis to generalise that there is no progress in the nation’s democracy.
He said although impunity has been a character of our growing democracy at the moment, the situation would improve as democracy deepens in the land.
“It is the root of what is playing out in Ekiti State. It explains what APC called rally. All parties and public office-holders are culpable.
“However, I am persuaded that it is only a phase that our surprisingly impressive democracy will overcome with time,” Nwadike told TheNiche.
He added that what “we are seeing are some of the things dropping from top to down. Our democracy is still evolving and some of the things we are witnessing may be expected. There will be pockets of distraction, no doubt, but I pray it will get better with time.”
Human rights activist and legal practitioner, Tunji Abayomi, said it is a sad story that Fayose, since his second coming barely a month, has thrown the state into chaos.
The country, he said, is in an age of the rule of law and that the constitution must protect citizens and democratic institutions against arbitrariness of power.
