Warring Ondo Lawmakers Go Underground Over Alleged Threats To Lives

Sources informed that legislators loyal to Coker’s camp may have gone into hiding over alleged threat to their lives.

It was gathered ?that the lawmakers, whose eight of them are members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), while five are members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have been receiving some strange calls since they carried out the impeachment process of Akindele.

The spokesman of the group, Hon. Ogundeji Iroju who spoke with The Nation on phone ?said their faction is not against Mimiko presenting the budget but only against the claim of Akindele that she is still the speaker despite she has been removed.
Iroju said “the whole genesis of the? Assembly crisis is the alleged fraud of N15million levelled against Akindele and that was what led to her impeachment for a second term.

“You will recollect that Akindele has earlier been impeached 10 months ago before governor Mimiko appealed to us to stop the impeachment with the intention then that she will turn a new leave.

“This time around, we have elected another speaker, deputy and majority leader to replace the former principal officers of the house.

“On Monday, we got an information that governor Mimiko will be coming to the house on Wednesday to come and present his 2017 appropriation bill and ?as early as possible, we have arrived the Assembly waiting patiently for Mimiko because that is one of our constitutional duty to accept appropration bill from the governor and give the bill accelerated passage.

“But eventually, we waited for the governor but he did not come and what the law says is that only the quorum of the members can sit ?at any giving time at the Assembly and the quorum of 26 members is nine.

The members that sat were even more than the needed quorum. We were 13 in number.

“We found out later the reason why the governor did not come to present his budget, we were told that he has another emergency meeting in Abuja. We are waiting for Mimiko to come and present his budget because we know that if the budget is pass into law, it will have great positive impact on the lives of the masses.”

When he was asked if they have made an attempt to discuss with the governor on why the sacked

Akindele since they are all members of the same party, Iroju said “this is purely House of Assembly ?affairs not a party issue.

“We are defending the mandate of the people and not about the party because the people that voted for us are not only PDP members.

“This is a legislative issue and nobody can impose a speaker on us. We are only worried why the governor is insisting that Akindele should continue as the speaker despite the allegation levelled against her.”

The spokesman of ?Akindele’s faction. Hon. Siji Akindiose from Ondo East state constituency only said their faction have decided not to go public on the issue anymore.

Akindiose said he believes that it is an Assembly affair and the matter should be resolved amicably among the lawmakers.

But in his previous interviews, the lawmaker had once said the money caught with the paymaster by their colleagues was meant for a project.

He exonerated the embattled speaker from the allegations and also said the lawmakers, who carried the impeachment process failed to meet up the required constitutional numbers of lawmaker that must sit to impeach a speaker.

thenation