Our lives under threat - Ondo lawmakers

Some Ondo State House of Assembly members have alleged threats to their lives.



The Assembly has been polarised into two factions, headed by erstwhile Speaker Jumoke Akindele and Acting Speaker Malachi Coker.

Addressing reporters in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, yesterday, the Assembly spokesman, Iroju Ogundeji, accompanied by Coker and 11 others, said they fled to Ibadan because they received threatening text messages and calls.

Ogundeji called on the inspector general of Police and commissioner of Police to provide security for them and their families.

He urged the police to withdraw security aides attached to Ms Akindele “since she is no longer the Speaker”.



“Twenty of the 26 members signed the notice of impeachment.

“The impeachment has come to stay and there is no going back on it because the members who carried out the act formed 2/3 majority,” he said.

Ogundeji accused Governor Olusegun Mimiko of backing Akindele, adding that he was playing divide-and-rule tactics.

“The executive has been interfering in the impeachment which ought not to be so.

“Ms Akindele should have been impeached last March for high-handedness but Mimiko intervened.

“We are not against the governor but we are against corruption. The principal officers must go,” Ogundeji said.

The new Majority Leader, Olamide George, said: “The impeachment has nothing to do with the new governor coming into office and it is not All Progressives Congress (APC) using us as speculated.

“APC has nothing to do with this. Those of us in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are not thinking of crossing to APC.

“We shall remain and stay in PDP. We are in control of the House now because we have the mace.”

Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria has described the continued closure of the Assembly as “detrimental to the deepening of democracy in the country”.

The speakers said the legislature should not be a pawn in the hands of the executive.

Chairman of the Conference Abdulmumin Ismaila Kamba (Kebbi) in a statement by the Administrative Secretary, Busari Sarafadeen, yesterday said relevant authorities involved should reverse the closure of the Assembly.