The lawlessness in Ekiti : Since Governor Ayodele Fayose was re-elected into office as the Ekiti State governor, it has been one crisis or the other. It’s been from one violence to another. Reported cases of unrest, acrimony and upheaval in various parts of the state have become a regular feature under the new regime. Few persons have also lost their lives. Many Ekitis are beginning to wonder whether this is how things will continue. Again, the dance of shame resonated with the latest move by some members of the state House of Assembly. Rather than be called lawmakers, the action of the few legislators is nothing but an aberration and complete lawlessness. Or, how do we explain the unlawful attempt by only seven members of the assembly to invalidly conduct the legitimate affairs of the house? With the deployment of over 200 policemen, the Deputy Speaker, Taiwo Orisalade and some All Progressives Congress lawmakers were allegedly barred from entering the assembly premises. To worsen matters, the police were allegedly actively involved in this constitutional breach, by using their official trucks to block entrances to the assembly complex and preventing members of the APC – who had legitimate business to do in the assembly – from gaining entry. Even journalists were allegedly prevented from covering the sitting as only selected print media reporters were allowed in. During the kangaroo plenary that ensued, the Peoples Democratic Party caucus “confirmed” the appointment of three commissioner-nominees, special advisers and caretaker committees for the 16 Local Government Areas of the state as proposed by Fayose. Their purported confirmation followed the presentation of a list containing their names by the appointed leader of government business for the day, Samuel Ajibola, who had cited the absence of the Speaker, Dr. Adewale Omirin, and his deputy as the reason for the appointment of Dele Olugbemi as the “protem speaker”! He had argued that Section 27 of the Standing Order of the assembly empowered its members to appoint a protem speaker in the absence of the substantive Speaker and his deputy. He also argued that 10 members sat – without disclosing their identities and their party. Earlier and against the normal rule of the assembly, the seven PDP members, led by armed policemen and thugs were said to have bundled the Clerk to his office and at gunpoint, removed the mace from his office, to illegally conduct the plenary. The crisis in the Ekiti assembly assumed a dangerous dimension when Fayose allegedly ordered the sealing off of the Speaker’s office, who also claimed that the governor had deployed threats, intimidation, coercion, froze the accounts of the assembly, and cut electricity supply to the Speaker’s Lodge, among other harsh treatment, meted out to the House. As a result of this imbroglio, many things have gone wrong for the state. And at the end, it is the good people of Ekiti that suffer as normal legislative activities in the House continue to stall. Irrespective of the overbearing influence of the executive arm, democratic governance can never be effective without a virile legislature and the judicature. There are strong indications too that the APC lawmakers in the state House of Assembly have fled and gone into hiding for security reasons. Besides, public servants working in the Speaker’s office – who are meant to be staff of the Ekiti State House of Assembly Commission – have been asked to report at the state Ministry of Establishment, while the chassis number of the Speaker’s official cars had been taken on the order of the Governor, perhaps, for possible retrieval and humiliation. While the case of Ekiti seems to be the latest, the Edo State APC faction of the lawmakers was said to be currently operating from the Government House while the factional PDP legislators hold separate sittings elsewhere. The purported impeachment of then Governor Joshua Dariye of Plateau State by only eight out of 24 members of the State House of Assembly reminds one that this illegality perpetrated by the seven PDP members in the 26-member Ekiti assembly will certainly not stand. Unfortunately, what is obvious in all of this is the inability of the police to rise to the challenge of maintaining law and order. It is just in line with recent events in Osun, Adamawa, Nasarawa and Rivers states, where the police openly and shamefully displayed partisanship, unprofessionalism and abdicated their sworn duty to protect all. Before this lawlessness, the police were accused of looking on as thugs and miscreants beat up revered judges and tore the record books of the state Chief Judge, Ayodeji Daramola. It was even more worrisome that after the National Judicial Council had ordered the reopening of the courts for normal business, the police still turned the judiciary litigants and workers back by ensuring that Fayose was sworn in as governor. We recall that last year, the police similarly allowed thugs to attack five opposition governors – who had travelled to Port Harcourt in solidarity with Governor Rotimi Amaechi – rather than protecting them as a social right. We should remind police authorities that in line with the constitution and the Police Act, they are bound to be fair to all in the discharge of their statutory duties. The police, rather than promoting the rule of law, have become a major problem and clog in the wheel of progress for our weak democratic rule. They should, therefore, stop taking sides with political parties, groups and the government in power at any level in Nigeria. Let’s even take an objective look at Fayose’s request tabled before the House. The House of Assembly had refused to deliberate on the first request because it was subjudice, as the sacked caretaker chairmen of the 16 Local Government Areas and 19 Local Council Development Areas had earlier gone to court to challenge their dissolution. The 35 caretaker chairmen were sworn in by the immediate past Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, but Fayose on assumption of office, dissolved them. The House attention was drawn to a writ of summons in the case instituted by the sacked caretaker chairmen of the 16 LGAs and the 19 LCDAs, as Order 54(5) of the Standing Order of House states that the assembly could not deliberate on a matter pending in court. Secondly, the list of commissioner-nominees could not be screened because it was not included in the Order Paper while the governor’s third request for the state to access N2bn out of the N220bn Small, Micro and Medium Enterprises’ Development Fund of the Central Bank of Nigeria, which the assembly said would bring about development to the state’s economy, was not turned down but approved. I don’t think the decisions were taken in bad faith. As I was about concluding this piece, news filtered in that the same seven PDP members of the House have allegedly impeached the Speaker. The “impeachment” of Omirin was hatched in the same manner the seven lawmakers sat under controversial circumstances with heavy police presence to illegally approve the commissioner-nominees and local government caretaker committees. It is on this note that I strongly advise Fayose to thread softly and avoid unnecessary full scale crisis looming in the state. He should toe the path of legality by disregarding the felonious move by the kangaroo PDP lawmakers and restore the Speaker to his office while the Inspector-General of Police too should caution his officers to without further delay.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 04:26:37 +0000
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