Samuel Ajayi who has been monitoring recent developments in Ekiti State House of Assembly which culminated in the election of two Speakers within one week, writes on the background of the crisis and why apolitical leaders in the state may have to step in to resolve issues at stake
After successfully installing Biodun Oyebanji as his successor, former Ekiti State governor, Kayode Fayemi, felt he must also extend that control to the state House of Assembly by installing a successor to the late Speaker, Hon Funminiyi Afuye. But a coup de grace by some renegade Assembly members put paid to this; albeit temporarily.
In what could be described as a ‘counter coup’, Fayemi’s loyalists staged the impeachment of the new Speaker, Hon Gboyega Aribisogan, and installed his preferred candidate, Hon Bunmi Adelugba, which has now thrown the Assembly and, by extension the state, into a needless crisis.
A Death and the Marching Order…
The moment the death of Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly, Hon Funminiyi Afuye, was announced, those who knew the political undercurrents in the state immediately the new governor, Biodun Oyebanji, was sworn-in would tell you that there would be problematic days ahead. While those who were angling to succeed him kept very low profile and didn’t show their hands, obviously due to the fact that the man’s body was still in the morgue, the moment his body was lowered into the grave on Friday, November 11, 2022, they went to work.
Immediate past governor of the state, Dr Kayode Fayemi, whose plans to become the dominant political figure and decider in the state are no longer hidden, was the first to make a move.
He summoned the remaining ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) members of the 26-member Assembly to his Ado-Ekiti home on Sunday, November 13th and told them what he wanted: Olubunmi Adelugba of Emure Constituency must emerge the new Speaker.
At the meeting with Assembly members were Bisi Egbeyemi, Modupe Adelabu and Abiodun Aluko, all former deputy governors.
Also there were Paul Omotosho, the state party chairman, Chief Alaba Bejide, a party stalwart and Garba Arigundade, the secretary of the party in the state.
According to sources, Fayemi and the party leaders said they did not want the election of the new Speaker to create rancour and wanted the seat to remain at Ekiti South Senatorial District and hence should support Adelugba.
Sources said Aribisogan stood up and said they had heard but would go to their various constituencies for consultations and there were also rules and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to follow.
Even at that, Fayemi and the party leaders were said to have told the Assembly members that whatever they came back with, Adelugba must emerge.
During the meeting with the APC Assembly members, one of them was said to have told him in plain terms that they were surprised that the former governor could call them and give them political instructions after at least 15 of them were denied tickets to go back to the House.
In fact, practically all Assembly members on the platform of the party who supported the current governor, Oyebanji, to pick the party’s governorship ticket were inexplicably denied ticket to return to the House.
One of them was the one who protested to Fayemi after he asked them to ensure the emergence of Adelugba as the new Speaker.
Fayemi was said to have appealed to them to sheath the sword and ensure that Adelugna emerge as the new Speaker.
The Assembly members were said to have agreed to ensure the former governor’s wishes were achieved but what they did not tell him was that they had other plans. It was when Fayemi’s foot soldiers who were in the House to ensure that things went as planned listened to the person to nominate Adelugba that they got the shocker of their lives.
The Making of a Coup de Grace…
When they left Fayemi and the party leaders, the Assembly members were said to have met and vowed to ensure the former governor did not have his way. And they were able to keep the plans within themselves.
THISDAY sources explained further that a day after the meeting with Fayemi and the party leaders, the Deputy Speaker, Hon Hakeem Jamiu, called Assembly members and said there would be election on Tuesday, November 15th to pick a new Speaker.
By the time they got to the plenary and the Clerk of the House called for nominations, Hon. Tajudeen Akingbolu from Ekiti West Constituency 1 nominated Aribisogan and Hon. Goke Olajide from Ijero Constituency seconded it while Hon. Johnson Adeoye from Okemesi/Ido-Ile Constituency nominated Adelugba and seconded by Hon. Ademola Ojo from Ijero Constituency. After the election, Aribisogan got 15 votes and Adelugba got ten votes. There was no problem at all among members.
“When Hon. Akingbolu stood up and started speaking, Fayemi loyalists who were in the House started feeling uncomfortable,” a source who was in the House on the day of the election of the now impeached Speaker told THISDAY.
“When they saw the direction of Akingbolu’s speech and how he was quoting the law and need for experience, they knew he would not be nominating Adelugba. So by the time he finally nominated Gboyega Aribisogan, they knew exactly where he was going.”
After nominations, votes were called and Aribisogan had 15 votes to Adelugba’s 10.
With the outcome of the election of the new Speaker, Fayemi was said to have seen it as a personal slight going by the fact that practically all APC members of the House were his ‘boys’ and he expected them to do his bidding no matter what. And he was said to have vowed that the election of Aribisogan would not stand.
The prelude to the game that played out in the Assembly on Monday (the purported impeachment of Aribisogan as Speaker) actually started penultimate Wednesday when police took over the Assembly premises and sealed it off. Rumours were rife that some hoodlums had been recruited to attack the Assembly. It could not be ascertained who these hoodlums were working for. It must be recalled, however, that the then new Speaker, Aribisogan, had adjourned the House sine die.
A member of the House, who was one of the seven allegedly suspended after the purported impeachment of Aribisogan who did not want his name in print, told THISDAY that the House has its own rules called Standing Order.
He said the election of presiding officers should be an independent decision of the House.
“We were not 25 after the death of Afuye. We had two people contesting; Aribisogan and Adeklugba and after the election, Aribisogan was congratulated by everyone. Even Adelugba congratulated him. And from there, he announced there would be parliamentary session and he met all 25 of us and discussed and congratulated him again,” the House member told THISDAY.
Police Cock and Bull Story…
However, the Assembly members were to get the shocker of their lives the following day. By the time they got to the Assembly, they saw policemen led by one Mr. Marcus who is commandant of the Rapid Response Squad, RRS, in the state locking the House.
The Assembly members were said to have called the Commissioner of Police who claimed ignorance of his men’s presence in the Assembly premises, ordered the police withdrawal.
Ten minutes later, sources said the police team came back and said the Commissioner of Police wanted to see the Assembly members.
“When we got there, he changed the story thatnhe had intelligence report that bombs had been planted in the assembly premises and asked for four hours to comb the premises. The second and third days, we called him he said the investigation was still on. On Thursday, he had to display a keg of petrol that some people wanted to burn the Assembly. We saw keg of petrol but no one was arrested. Who then brought the petrol? How could you display the keg of petrol that was to be used to burn the Assembly but you didn’t arrest the person that was to do the burning?” another member of the Assembly told THISDAY.
It has now emerged that the police were probably working on the instructions of former Governor Fayemi who knew what the Assembly members led by the newly elected Speaker, Aribisogan, were to come and do on their next sitting: impeach the Deputy Speaker, Jamiu, who is fiercely loyal to Fayemi.
The ‘Uncovered Hole’…
The G-15 Assembly members that pulled the political rug under Fayemi by ensuring his preferred candidate for the vacant post of the Deputy Speaker did not emerge were perhaps carried away by the fact that they were able to pull a fast one on the former governor and hence, failed to complete the coup de grace: impeach the Deputy Speaker.
“Knowing well how loyal Jamiu was to Fayemi, they ought to have known that if Aribisogan was not on seat, Jamiu would be able to reconvene the House and that was exactly what happened,” another source told THISDAY.
And that was exactly what happened on Monday, November 21st when the House reconvened under the leadership of Deputy Speaker, Hon Hakeem Jamiu and impeached Aribisogan who was said to be away in Abuja attending Speakers’ Conference.
Sources told THISDAY that only seven members sat and impeached the Speaker. The source said it was after the purported impeachment that calls were being made to other members to come or else they would be suspended. And those who felt intimidated decided to go. It was the seven that refused to go that were suspended by the House. These are Tajudeen Akingbolu, Gboyega Aribisogan, Goke Olajide, Yemisi Ayokunle, Adeyemi Ajibade, Kemi Balogun and Tope Ogunleye.
One of those suspended by the House under the new Speaker, Tajudeen Akingbolu, while speaking to THISDAY, said the impeachment and suspensions could not stand a test of time.
“The suspension cannot stand and even the impeachment of Aribisogan. Before a presiding officer could be impeached, there is a process. Allegations must be levelled against the officer in writing and must be given 72 hours to respond after which there will be ad hoc committee that would look into the allegations and his response and the impeachment must have the backing of two thirds of the House. It was after they impeached Aribisogan and installed Adelugba by just seven members that they started calling people that if they didn’t come, they would be suspended. And some got intimidated and decided to go.”
He challenged those who impeached Aribisogan to produce a video evidence that 17 members were in attendance when the impeachment took place. He insisted that only seven members carried out the impeachment of Aribisogan.
And the Governor Keeps Mum…
What has been shocking to many in almost two weeks that the saga has started was the deafening silence from the new governor, Biodun Oyebanji. He was said to have told those close to him that he has chosen to remain neutral in whatever is happening in the House.
Oyebanji was not even invited to the meeting where Fayemi and some party elders decided that it was Adelugba that must succeed the late Afuye as Speaker.
Even before then, tongues have been wagging over how the new governor is being politically armstrunged by former Governor Fayemi.
For instance, practically every member of Fayemi’s kitchen cabinet have found their ways into the new administration.
These included Commissioner for Health, Oyebanji Filani, his Finance counterpart, Akin Oyebode Jnr, Chief Press Secretary, Yinka Oyebode, State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) Chairman, Prof. Femi Akinwumi.
Others are Fayemi’s trusted foot soldier, otherwise known as ‘Egghead’, Seun Odewale, as well as Principal Private Secretary to the former governor who has also found his way back to Oyebanji’s administration.
The plan of the former governor is to replicate the ‘Lagos Scenario’ in Ekiti and was said to have told those close to him that Oyebanji would not be allowed to dabble into party politics so as not to be distracted.
Yet, when Fayemi was governor, he single-handedly determined who picked party tickets to various elective positions. Perhaps, he preferred to be distracted. On the streets of Ado-Ekiti, his house is referred to as ‘Ekiti Bourdillon’.
In another powerfully worded statement, leading legal luminaries of Ekiti extraction: Aare Afe Babalola, Chief Wole Olanipekun, Femi Falana, Dele Adesina, Debo Akinlaja and Gboyega Oyewole, all Senior Advocates of Nigeria, in a jointly signed statement, said the “democratic rascality”, which was the way they described the removal of Gboyega Aribisogan as Speaker would not stand.
The legal titans said they were not ready to believe the words making the rounds that former Governor Fayemi was behind the legislative shenanigans going on in the state.
“Taking cognisance of this precedent, the natural deduction to be made from the flagrant actions of the current political gladiators in Ekiti State House of Assembly and their instigator(s) is that they have no respect for the rule of law. By their actions, they have demonstrated a penchant for political rascality, impunity, brazenness and recklessness of no mean measure. Let it be mentioned and registered, posthaste, without any modicum of equivocation, that the purported impeachment of Hon. Gboyega Aribisogan as well as the announced suspension of seven members of the House is an exercise in utmost futility and, unquestionably, null and void,” the statement said.
The statement said what happened in the House was “absolutely unwarranted, unjustified and condemnable. By way of argument, the sponsors of the charade and their cohorts in the House have foisted on the entire State, a coup d’etat, in the sense that the suspension of more than one quarter of the members of the House equally translates to the fact that members of their constituencies have also been suspended from the State.”
THISDAY gathered that there was a meeting between the Ewi of Ado-Ekiti and the suspended Assembly members as well as some leaders of the ruling party on Monday.
The crux: the aggrieved Assembly members should let peace reign which is tantamount to former Governor Fayemi having his way and Aribisogan remains impeached. Four of the suspended members of the Assembly are said to have been won over but Akingbolu, Olajide and Aribisogan are said to have stood their ground and insisted on going to court.
It remains to be seen if Fayemi, who has carefully remains in the background pulling the strings, will have his way. But it seems the issue is beyond the Speakership but saving the state from a budding political fiefdom.
