Ondo Assembly crisis: We only sat 4 times in 7 months — Aggrieved lawmakers

…Allegations are baseless — Embattled Speaker

By Dayo Johnson

AKURE— THE crisis rocking the Ondo State House of Assembly has deepened as 21 of 26 lawmakers, yesterday, alleged that only four plenary sessions were held in seven months under the embattled Speaker, Mr Olamide Oladiji.

The aggrieved lawmakers have suspended legislative business and asked the Speaker to resign over N44 million allegedly linked to the reordering of the Ondo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, OSOPADEC, budget.

The Assembly spokesperson, Olatunji Fabiyi, who confirmed the infrequent sittings, said the development hampered legislative activities and deepened frustration within the House.

The 21 lawmakers, who have signed an impeachment notice, also suspended plenary indefinitely.
They insisted that legislative business will not resume until the Speaker resigns.

One of the lawmakers told newsmen that the Assembly has been unable to discharge its constitutional responsibilities due to frequent tensions.

He alleged that the Speaker often delayed sittings whenever disagreements emerged.
The aggrieved lawmakers, who spoke in confidence, said: “We have had only four plenary sittings since January. We are not on recess, yet the House has hardly sat. This issue has been going on for more than three or four months.

“Whenever he notices there are issues, he will not call plenary.

“He waits until the tension has died down before calling the House to sit, sometimes after a month. That has been his pattern.

“Sometimes he travels and no meeting is called at all. We are not on recess, but the House remains inactive.

“When issues came up in November and December, we barely had meetings. Once there was a disagreement, the House effectively went quiet until members resumed much later.”

Also speaking, the Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Mr Olatunji Fabiyi, lamented the infrequent sittings under the embattled speaker.

Fabiyi said: “We have our system of sitting of House. We can do parliamentary meetings; it’s part of the meetings. He is not the person that is calling for parliamentary meetings.

“The Majority Leader has the statutory right to call for parliamentary meetings. It is only proper sitting that the speaker convenes. And in situations when he doesn’t convene it, at the parliamentary meeting, when we have our numbers, we can call for sitting.”

Fabiyi, who disclosed that the leadership met with the Speaker about four days ago, said the lawmakers no longer have confidence in him.

He said: “We told him categorically that you are not enjoying the confidence of members again. And we told him to go and resign voluntarily so that it won’t have any negative impact on his political future.”

Allegations are baseless — Speaker

In his reaction, the embattled Speaker said: “Let them provide the evidence. Our parliamentary meeting is regarded as statutory meeting, as regards a regular meeting.

“At times, we might not have plenary sitting, but we have parliamentary sitting. Parliamentary sitting is as important as plenary sitting. All the allegations they are claiming, let them provide evidence as regards that.

“The way we work is that the executive, in most cases, are the ones that have so many bills. Maybe the bill they want to amend or maybe a new law.

“What I mean is that the executive works with the House of Assembly. They are the ones that usually sponsor so many bills. If the executive wants to come up with a bill or even sponsor a bill, most of the bills we process in the House of Assembly usually come from the executive.

“Either they want to amend an existing law or maybe they want to process a bill into law.

“So, if we don’t have plenary, that does not mean that we don’t come to the office. That does not mean that we don’t have oversight or exercise our oversight function. It does not mean that we do not have parliamentary meetings. So, all the allegations against my person are just baseless allegations.”

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