Gboyega Aribisogan has been impeached as Ekiti State House of Assembly Speaker and suspended indefinitely by the lawmakers.
Seventeen out of the 25 lawmakers elected Olubunmi Adelugba as the new speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly.
The leadership of the Assembly has been in crisis since the death of former speaker, Funminiyi Afuye who died at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital on October 19 after suffering cardiac arrest.
Ekiti State Assembly Complex had been sealed as members split into opposing groups over the position of the speaker.
Aribisogan, who is the representative of Ikole 1 Constituency in the Assembly and a two-term lawmaker, emerged Speaker a month after Afuye’s death.
Prior to his removal on Monday, Aribisogan had accused the immediate past governor of the, Kayode Fayemi of working with members of the state legislature to impeach him.
“The majority of members of Assembly voted for me but few of them who felt perhaps I did not follow the directive of the former governor, Dr Fayemi, thought that they would make the state ungovernable for even the administration,” Aribisogan said on Channels Television.
“I didn’t have any quarrel with him (Fayemi). I sent a message to him even last night asking, ‘What is happening? Am I no longer one of your loyalists? Why did you not congratulate me?’
“Up till now that I’m speaking with you, he has not done anything. Otherwise, he has been going around calling our members to go and impeach me tomorrow. That is the truth.”
Aribisogan had also alleged threats to his life over the position of speaker for the Ekiti State House of Assembly.
“As I’m speaking with you, seven of our members are locked up in Fem Guest House in Ado Ekiti, planning on how to impeach me tomorrow in cahoots with some of his former aides like the former commissioner for justice.” He said earlier.
However, Chief Press Secretary to Ekiti State Governor, Yinka Oyebode, dismissed the allegations.
According to him, there was an in-house conflict among the legislative officials, which would be resolved amicably.
He stated, “What is playing out in the state House of Assembly is purely legislative affairs. I want to believe that the leadership of the house and also the leadership of the party will resolve it amicably.
“The information we have and that the police reported about the locking up of the place is that some hoodlums were about burning down the place a couple of days ago and because of that, some of them were even chased away while some jerrycans of fuel and cutlasses were recovered from them,” he added.
Oyebode noted that the executive arm of government did not have much to do with the matter as the House of Assembly members were elected representatives of the people of their constituencies.
He said, “They are there to make laws for orderliness in the state. I believe they are up to the task to resolve it amicably among themselves,” he said.
“The stance of the governor is that he’s a Democrat and he’s the head of the government. He also believes there is the separation of power and every arm of government has a measure of independence,” he added.
