Ekiti PDP lawmakers should be tried for felony– Odu Ayodeji Odu is the representative of Irepodun/Ifelodun Constituency II in the Ekiti State House of Assembly and Chairman, Judiciary and Legal Matters Committee, Mr. Ayodeji Odu, speaks about the impasse in the Assembly What’s your view on the suspension of the 19 All Progressives Congress legislators by the seven Peoples Democratic Party legislators? The seven suspended members cannot form a quorum in a 26-member Ekiti State House of Assembly. Section 101 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) allows the House of Assembly to regulate its proceedings and, having passed a motion to that effect, can relocate to any public building since the ‘maximum ruler’ in Ekiti State has decided to join the seven members in mobilising the security apparatus of the state and political thugs against the majority of the legislators. Go to the Assembly premises, you will see over 50 armed thugs, whose main assignment is to kill or maim any of the 19 APC legislators sighted within the complex. We are perfectly justified to relocate with our symbol of authority to any public institution within the state capital to conduct our sittings and we shall continue to do that. In a sane society, the seven suspended PDP lawmakers and their accomplices ought to be on trial for treasonable felony. Why didn’t you, APC lawmakers, drag the seven PDP lawmakers to court? We are in court and the court has not said we should not perform our duty as legislators. If they feel aggrieved, they should go to court too. Any further sitting by the seven suspended members will complicate the issue. I pray for God’s wisdom to prevail before it is too late. The impostor speaker, Dele Olugbemi, cannot claim to be a speaker. In fact, he does not qualify to be a speaker. The PDP has said that the 19 APC lawmakers in the legislature are acting the script of the leader of your party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu? That is not true. Tinubu never interfered even when Governor Kayode Fayemi was in the saddle. He has maintained a calm approach to the whole issue coming up in Ekiti State. For some, the fear of the Jagaban of Borgu is the beginning of wisdom. All the allegations of his bankrolling us is balderdash. They are probably curious about how we are surviving but I state it again that some of us can still feed well despite being denied our salaries and allowances by Fayose. I have lawyers running my legal chambers and the same applies for other members who have their primary callings. The G19 are no stooges of anyone. No stooge would have the ability to take the stand we have taken in Ekiti State. You were alleged by Olugbemi to have turned yourself into a bailiff by procuring and serving court processes on the floor of the Ekiti State House of Assembly to truncate the dissolution and reconstitution of the local government caretaker committee requested by the governor? I don’t think it’s appropriate to refer to Joseph Dele Olugbemi as a factional Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly. The term ‘factional leader’ may seem to confer some form of legitimacy on his actions. He is an illegal speaker, a usurper, whose emergence has violated all constitutional provisions. He is an illegality and a constitutional aberration. His type can only emerge in a society filled with absurdities. Now coming to your question, it’s obvious that Olugbemi does not even know what a bailiff means and, for his proper education, he should go and read the Sheriff and Civil Process Law as contained in the annual volumes of the Laws of Nigeria for proper education. What happened on the floor of the House of Assembly on November 17, 2014 was simple and straightforward enough for a primary school pupil to understand. A writ of summons in which the House and the Speaker were joined as parties was served on the House of Assembly and received by the Clerk of the House. It was directed to me for my attention as the Chairman of the Judiciary and Legal Matters Committee of the Assembly by Speaker Adewale Omirin. Copies of the originating processes were made and served to all members. I was not even involved in the copying process. I received my own copy just like other members did. When the plenary session resumed and the issue came up for discussion, I raised a point of order in accordance with the relevant rules of the House and informed the Assembly of the pending matter in court and that since the matter is subjudice, we have to postpone deliberations on the request. The Speaker gave adequate opportunity to all members who wished to contribute to do so. Olugbemi, with the little knowledge of English Language at his disposal made his contributions, and at the end, the House ruled that since the matter was in court we have to postpone deliberations on the request. I could remember the Speaker making a closing remark that he does not have constitutional immunity for prosecution against contempt of court and must be careful in handling the matter. The records of the proceedings are there and can be obtained by anybody. Why did you abandon your constitutional duties and relocate to Lagos? We have not and we will not abandon our constitutional duties. Firstly, that question is borne out of the notion that a legislator’s duty is only limited to the floor of the House of Assembly. No other member can represent my constituency in the Assembly and I cannot represent the constituency of another person. We are in close contact with our constituencies and very soon we will start sitting if the security agencies are ready to perform their constitutional responsibilities without taking sides as they are currently doing. Did Governor Fayose abandon his responsibilities in 2006 when he sneaked out of the Ekiti State Government House I believe the first law of nature is self preservation like Governor Fayose did in 2006. If I am your brother, will you ask me to go and confront armoured tanks, soldiers and political thugs who have been compromised with my bear hands? Those who make peace impossible are inviting chaos in their backyards. We do not want a situation where another state of emergency will be imposed on the state. For someone who performed an ‘obituary’ for his opponents on the day of his inauguration, I expect Governor Fayose to go to bed with his eyes closed. After all, if your enemy is dead you don’t have anyone to fear again. The mere fact that we are being hounded, harassed and intimidated with armoured tanks proves that the APC is still the party to beat in Ekiti State. We are not in Lagos. We were in Lagos to sensitise the entire world to our plight. We equally visited and may still visit other states and agencies if the need arises. I am sure you don’t expect us to die in silence since all channels of communication in Ekiti have been blocked against us. The television and radio stations in Ekiti are now involved in a monologue. They have become the official megaphones of Governor Fayose. Truth and justice have taken flight in Ekiti State. Olugbemi alleged that three of the 19 APC members are secretly holding meetings with the seven PDP lawmakers and are secretly receiving salaries? I think Olugbemi is in a better position to tell us the three APC members who are doing that. No one, I repeat, no one as of today has left the G19 group. They have been impersonating the 19 APC members in their sittings and that is an offence. Please try and get the votes and proceedings of the seven members; they should make their sittings open and allow news organisations to cover them like we were doing before. Even the Information Section of the House is no longer allowed to cover proceedings. Windows and doors are closed when they are sitting. What do they have to hide? I will not abandon the party on whose platform I was voted into power. Is it true the Assembly demanded N135m to approve the list of commissioner-nominees? I am not aware of any such deal. I attended only one meeting between the honourable members and Governor Fayose. I am not aware of what transpired at any other meeting or meetings held between the House and the Governor as I was not there. The allegation of N135m just came out of the blues and it is a propaganda aimed at sending political assassins after honourable members so that they can say they were killed by armed robbers. What’s your take on Fayose’s emergence in Ekiti? As a citizen of Nigeria, Fayose has the right to contest for any office of his choice in Ekiti and Nigeria but I believe that that right must be exercised under the provisions of the constitution. The Nigerian constitution is the ground norm of our society. Anything that derogates from the constitutional provisions is an illegality which cannot stand as you cannot put something on nothing. Our courts, unfortunately, have been trampled upon that we no longer get justice but political judgments. You will recollect Fayose was impeached in 2006. He himself says it at every opportunity and he owes the state and the nation at large the duty of disclosing this in his nomination forms which he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission. The repercussion of failure to do this and doing otherwise is very clear under the provisions of the Electoral Act. I will not want to say more than that for now. I wish him smooth sailing for as long as it lasts.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 13:36:43 +0000
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