Tension In Benin After Midnight Inauguration Of House Of Assembly

By Ayodele Oluwafemi

Benin, the Edo State capital was on Tuesday morning gripped with political tension after the midnight inauguration of the House of Assembly by nine out of 24 members.

Accounts of how the members were mobilized for the action remained varied but it is being alleged that members were wooed with financial inducements to partake in the action.

The 24 members-elect all of the All Progressives Congress, APC had been divided over the election of a Speaker of the House as Governor Godwin Obaseki and his immediate predecessor Comrade Adams Oshiomhole engaged in a supremacy battle over the control of the new house.

Oshiomhole had earlier in the day shown his supremacy when 19 of the 24 members-elect at a press conference in Benin vowed not to heed the governor.

It was in that light that the governor held back from issuing the proclamation of the House of Assembly pending when he was able to get the required number.

The governor’s predicament was worsened after the state chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Dan Orbih weighed into the situation with a threat to seek an order of mandamus to compel the governor to issue the proclamation.

It was against the background of the assault from Oshiomhole and the threat from the PDP that the governor’s camp reportedly engaged lawyers as to the options available to them.

GWG understands that the argument of forming a quorum of eight members-elect was then chosen. It was against this background that three members from Oshiomhole’s camp were invited to meet with the six members-elect already loyal to the governor.

Sources say that once the three arrived their phones were taken off from them to keep them incommunicado while the deed of electing a new Speaker by the nine present was done.

Mr. Frank Okiye, Esan North East 1 was elected as the Speaker.

Meanwhile, the development has been seriously flayed by the coordinator of the Nigeria Grassroots Patriots, Dr. Isaiah Osifo.

Osifo in a statement made available to GWG said:

“I have severally questioned the integrity of Governor Obaseki and l have repeatedly maintained that Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State will at any time fail Audit and Transparency test. This is another example of transparency failure and the consistent refusal of a Godwin Obaseki to be accountable to the people of Edo State. The claim to performance without transparency and accountability is a fake.

“The midnight “inauguration” of Edo State House of Assembly is a desperation taken too far and a clear evidence that we have in Edo State a governor who has come to Edo State for his personal interest , not for the interest of the people of Edo State.

“The immoral, disgraceful and illegal act must be condemned , resisted and defeated by the collective Will of Edo people, not for the sake of the elected members, but for the fact that the parliament of Edo State is not the property of Governor Godwin Obaseki , nor the property of All Progressives Congress,(APC), but an important institution collectively owned by Edo people and must be collectively protected by all reasonable people of Edo State.”

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