Edo Assembly Crisis: Dep. Speaker’s Impeachment Followed Due Process – APC Tells PDP

The Edo State chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC)
Thursday said the impeachment of the suspended
Deputy Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Mr
Festus Ebea, was an internal affair of the House, which it
said followed due process.

The party was reacting to the press conference by the state chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Dan Orbih,
who said that the APC lawmakers did not have the
required 2/3 to impeach the deputy speaker just as he
claimed that it was done inside the state governor,
Comrade Adams Oshiomhole's bedroom.

The state chairman of the APC, Mr Anslem Ojezua,
asserted that "what Orbih is seeing now is the result of
the mischief that he masterminded together with his
associates. They succeeded in misleading their members
to plan a botched coup and the consequences of that
mischievous action is the removal of the Deputy
Speaker.

"The opposition ignorantly makes noise about the
number of Assembly Members that can remove the
Deputy Speaker from office by claiming that the House
did not meet the 2/3 requirement to so remove Hon.
Festus Ebea as Deputy Speaker.

"For the avoidance of doubt, the notice of impeachment
of Hon. Festus Ebea was signed by 16 members of the
House. This clearly was more than the 13 signatures
required to impeach him. It must be borne in mind that
with the suspension of 4 members, only 20 members
are, for now, legitimately entitled to attend and
participate in any legislative business of the House of
Assembly.

"Two-thirds of 20 members cannot by any stretch of
imagination be anything above 13.
"We state for the records that impeachment of an officer
is an internal affair of the State House of Assembly
following its rules. In the instant case, the House has
complied with its extant rules.

"We also find it laughable that the impeached Deputy
Speaker, Hon Festus Ebea, said the sitting of the
lawmakers was held in the Governor's Office. We are
embarrassed that the Deputy Speaker has no sense of
history and is so ignorant as to know that the sittings of
the House of Assembly used to hold in the Government
House before the new complex at the Airport Road was
erected.
"For the information of the impeached Deputy Speaker
and that of the unsuspecting members of the public, the
old chambers of the Edo State House of Assembly is
within the precinct of the Government House and the
Old Assembly building is still a property of the Assembly
which is there for them to use whenever they feel the
need to do so", Ojezua stated.

He further stated that "And the reason for the House
going to sit in an alternative location was duly articulated
in the motion read by the Majority leader, Philip Shaibu
that the new Assembly chambers was undergoing
renovation works. For Orbih to threaten that they are
going to break into the chambers on Monday, even with
the four suspended members tells you they want to
perpetuate illegality.

"Again I want to remind you that the people of Edo state
have been worried that they have not been getting the
representation that they deserve because the House was
held hostage by eight members against 16. The hostage
situation has been deflated and Edo people are happy
that the House is now sitting and they are doing their
legislative works. So we are appealing to our friends in
PDP to have respect for the judiciary by allowing the
judicial process to play out", he stated.