Ondo Assembly Warns Deputy Governor to Resign or Face Impeachment
The Ondo State House of Assembly has issued a stern warning to the deputy governor, Mr Lucky Aiyedatiwa, to resign from his office or face impeachment proceedings.
This comes after the meeting with President Bola Tinubu and other stakeholders over the political crisis in the state.
The House resumed its plenary session on Tuesday, the first time since the meeting with Tinubu in Abuja last Friday. The Speaker of the Assembly, Mr Olamide Oladiji, revealed that one of the resolutions reached at the meeting was that the deputy governor should write an undated resignation letter and submit it to the President.
The Speaker said that the President appointed him, the Secretary of the State Government, Mrs Oladunni Odu, and the state Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Ade Adetimehin, to monitor the compliance with the resolutions. He read the resolutions on the floor of the House and cautioned all the parties involved against violating them.
The resolutions included the following: “All parties shall embrace peace, status quo be maintained by all parties, all impeachment proceedings be terminated forthwith, and all court cases withdrawn by all parties.
“There will be no dissolution of the State Executive Council, an undated letter of resignation must be written and signed by the deputy governor and submitted to the President, the party leadership and structures remained intact, the House of Assembly leadership remained intact and Hon. Lucky Aiyedatiwa continues to perform the functions of office as deputy governor.”
The Speaker noted that the lawmakers were acting based on the mandate given to them by their constituents.
He said, “We, as elected representatives of the people, have only acted within the precinct of the mandate freely given to us by our constituents. We have demonstrated courage when the occasion demanded it. We asked questions when there was cause for us to do so.”
During the plenary session, the House also approved 51 members of the Interim Caretaker Committee for the 18 local government areas of the state and the Local Council Development Areas, following the request of the Governor Rotimi Akeredolu.
Newsflash Nigeria reports that there was a heavy presence of security operatives around the Assembly complex while the session lasted.
The deputy governor could not be reached for comment as his phone line was busy and he did not reply to the text message sent to him.
However, a source close to him said that he was not happy with the decision of the Assembly as it contradicted the resolution reached at the meeting with Tinubu.
The source said, “You can see that the deputy governor was not in the state yet. He is waiting for the House to declare him the acting governor before coming.
“ But I don’t know what will happen next on the matter because the House has not kept its own part of the ‘deal’.
“The status quo they are talking about is for the deputy governor to be acting as the governor and that is what I expected the speaker to read today but he didn’t put that in his speech. Let’s see what happens next.”