Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in a bid to restore peace to the Ondo State House of Assembly has met with the rampaging 18 members of the House who last week impeached their Speaker, Hon. Bamidele Oloyelogun, and his deputy, Hon. Iroju Ogundeji.
WESTERN POST sources said Osinbajo invited and met with the lawmakers in Abuja and urged them to maintain the peace. He was said to have telephoned Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu over the matter and may soon meet the governor together with the lawmakers who kicked their Speaker out.
On his part, a worried Ekiti State Governor kayode Fayemi telephone the new Speaker of the House, George, pleading with him to prevail on his colleagues to take things easy.
While saying he was not too worried about the assemblymen moving against their Speaker as they reserve the constitutional right to change their presiding officers if they so wish, but the fact that the move might be a prelude to a bigger plan against the governor.
The lawmakers, who were holed up in Ibadan before, are presently in Abuja planning their next move.
Meanwhile, the assemblymen have raised the alarm over "concluded plans" by the impeached Speaker to pass the reordered budget forwarded to the Assembly by Governor Akeredolu.
The 18 members of the House of Assembly that constituted the group that impeached the Speaker, and his Deputy on Friday said the passage of the reordered budget would be "unconstitutional".
Fatai Olotu, Chairman of the Committee on Information of the Ondo State House of Assembly, had said the two main principals of the Assembly were removed due to their "gross incompetence".
However, in a statement issued on Thursday, Hon. Gbenga Araoyinbo, the embattled Majority Leader of the Assembly, alleged that the reordered budget was designed to cover up some "shady dealings" of the Akeredolu and his government.
Araoyinbo alleged that the reordered budget is also one of the reasons the two principal officers — Oloyelogun and Ogundeji — were impeached.
"It has come to our attention that the impeached Speaker of the Ondo State House of Assembly will be passing what is unconstitutionally known as a reordered budget today. We wish to state that the request for the passage of this Bill is one of the major reasons why we chose to remove and suspend the former leadership of the House on Friday, 9th November, 2018," hey said.
"Rt Hon Oleyeloogun had informed us that the Governor was desirous of passing the bill into law as quickly as possible under a procedure unknown to our Standing Rules, indeed, unknown to any known law of our state or Nigeria.
"By this Bill, the government seeks to cover the many shady and unappropriated approvals and spendings which are in excess of what is authorized by the budget. In the instant case, there are so many cases of moving funds from one head of expenditure to fund another head to the detriment of the expectations of our dear people of Ondo State, and there are so many cases of unjustified spendings particularly under some ministries that are under the purview of persons who are dear to the heart of the Governor.
"There are many curious and inexplicable expenditures, particularly under the Government House and Protocols, while important heads of expenditure specifically designed to ameliorate one hardship or the other for our people would have their allotted funds moved into heads that are only important to Mr Governor and his hangers- on."
He added that the appropriation bill calls for deep scrutiny, particularly when it was not subjected to known rules of the parliament, including the constitutional provisions as regards financial bills.
According to Araoyinbo, in many instances, the governor had attempted to "bribe" the lawmakers to ensure all bills forwarded to the House quickly passed into law.
The statement continued: "Oleyeloogun, acting in cohorts with the Governor and some other House leaders, insisted that we could not ask for the Year's Budget Performance and could definitely not hold a Public Hearing even to enquire from affected ministries why they chose to either overspend or the Budget or Finance Commissioners why they condoned so much illegality by allowing virements ab initio.
"We were informed that the Governor would rather simply give us some hush money, while they would employ what they called 'Oku Oru" system by which they would just generate some papers to appear as if the bill had gone through a normal process. We refused and demanded that the right thing must be done".
