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16—SATURDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 3, 2019
ONDO HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY SNAKE SAGA:
The true story
By Dayo Johnson,
Regional Editor, South West.
THE battle line has been drawn and if
nothing is done urgently, the peace of
the graveyard in the Ondo State
chapter of the All Progressive Congress may
further be ruptured.
The 26 legislators in the State House of
Assembly are at dagger drawn with the head
of the executive arm of government, Rotimi
Akeredolu a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who
seems to be a cat with many lives.
As he battles with some forces within and
outside the state to retain his seat ahead of
2020 governorship election, he is again
confronted with another in-house tango, this
time with a vital arm of government, the
legislature. However, the governor may win
this fight with the lawmakers because the
members of the assembly don’t have the
courage to fully take on the governor headlong.
Many of them have capitulated without the
knowledge of their ring leaders.
Why lawmakers hatched the plan
The leadership of the assembly believed the
plan was fool proof but unknown to many, there
are fifth columnists amongst them who are
the eyes of the executive. The plan was to arm
twist the governor who they have concluded
was frugal in spending money and has refused
to release funds to them for
the renovation of their
deplorable chambers
constructed in 1976.
Some members of the think
tank in the leadership of the
assembly reportedly met and
decided that the only way to
make the governor release
funds for the renovation was
to cook up the story of snake
invasion of the chambers and
the collapse of the ceiling
during plenary.
When the plan was tabled
before other members, they
embraced it and few of them
who were still nursing the
grudge on the alleged
imposition of the speaker, Hon
Bamidele Oloyelogun by the
governor saw this as an
opportunity to embarrass the
governor and the state hence
they encouraged the leaders to
go ahead with the plan.
Reports had it that the
governor was informed that
the snake story was a ruse and
a calculated attempt to arm
twist him to release funds.
Vanguard however gathered that N2m was
allocated to the assembly every year for the
past ten years for fumigation of the complex
while N57m allocation was given to the
legislators on monthly basis.
The leadership of
the assembly
believed the plan
was fool proof
but unknown to
many, there are
fifth columnists
amongst them
who are the eyes
of the executive
Snake invasion, ceiling collapse
The leadership of the assembly who believed
that they were on the same page with other
members called a media briefing and relayed
the stories of the snake invasion and the
collapse of the termite infested ceiling that
almost fell on the head of the speaker during
plenary.
Journalists were conducted round the
chambers and showed the ceiling where the
snake dropped and landed almost where the
maze, the authority of the house was usually
placed.
The collapsed ceiling close to the seat of the
speaker was equally showed to the journalists.
Chairman, House committee on
information Hon Gbenga Omole who was
mandated to address newsmen on the
members’ ordeal said, “When we were about
to enter into plenary on Wednesday, a big snake
just ran out of the chamber which disrupted
our sitting and we had to hurriedly leave the
chamber.
“We were about to sit again today ( Thursday)
when the ceiling caved in directly where Mr
Speaker was sitting, the whole house was
agitated and when we looked around we saw
the damage the termite had done to most of
the woodwork in the ceiling. At that point, we
had to adjourn the sitting. That chamber is no
longer safe for legislative business and because
of that, we decided to adjourn indefinitely. The
house will be going on an indefinite
recess.”
As usual, the report went viral,
even the CNN reported that snake
chased out legislators during
plenary which forced them to
adjourn indefinitely. It was the
headlines in major newspapers.
The legislators threw banters and
were happy after the reports hit the
headlines that they had achieved
their purpose and that the governor
would have no choice now that the
matter had gone viral than to play
ball. But they got it wrong as the
fake snake story had been leaked
to him by some of his trusted allies
in the assembly. However, while the
plan was being hatched, Governor
Akeredolu was away in Abuja to
show solidarity with the ministerial
nominee, Tayo Alasoadura who
appeared before the Senate.
Governor Akeredolu fumes
The embarrassing reports hit
him hard that instead of heading
to the Government House on
arrival on Friday, Akeredolu
stormed the assembly complex
fuming and expressed displeasure over the lies
by the members to embarrass him and his
government. Like a school teacher scolding
his pupils, Akeredolu lambasted the legislators
for lying about the invasion of the chambers
by snake.
He accused the lawmakers of blackmailing
him and his administration and an attempt to
hoodwink the unsuspecting members of the
public about the happenings in the Assembly.
Akeredolu said “Did you see any green snake
here? You said snake chased you out of this
place and that you adjourned sine-die. How
did you combine what happened here
yesterday with your snake if it is not a grand
connivance by yourselves? How did you come
about snake yesterday and day before
yesterday? How did you combine it and you
said snake fell on your head? The media took
your point and said snake fell on you and you
all kept quiet. This House has stayed here for
several years. If termites go into this place and
eat it, no doubt unless you treat this place for
termite, it will fall down.
“What I have come to do is to verify what has
happened. I have seen that what has happened
is that there is an attempt to blackmail the
state and I think the government will not take
it. I was given the facts and I want to be sure
that the Speaker and that most of the officers
are here.
“No snake fell here yesterday or day before
yesterday, they were not sitting when the ceiling
came down. They only met the ceiling that it
came down. It was not that they were sitting.
And all the pictures that were put up there are
fake. There was no sitting; the ceiling did not
collapse while they were sitting. How did you
come about that story? How did you come
about one giant snake or python; it does not
exist here. How did you come about it?
“There is an attempt to blackmail the
government and I don’t believe that is the best
approach. This is an arm of government and
they have their vote and what they are entitled
to is the one we give them. This place is termite
invested and certainly, the termites have been
dwelling here for several years. We have just
come for two years; there is no way termites’
infestation in two years would cause such
destruction. Something is wrong, this place
has not been maintained and members of the
House have always been here, what have they
done about the maintenance of this place? If
they have not been concerned about it, we have
to sit down at the table and work things out.
After the governor’s outburst that Friday, the
spokesperson for the assembly, Gbenga Omole
vowed that the legislators would not be
intimidated by the governor and threatened
that the N30b loan request of the governor
would be put in abeyance until their demand
for a better and conducive environment to
carry out their legislative duties was put in
place by the governor.
Lawmakers threaten not to approve N30b
loan
Omole who was responding to the governor’s
allegation that the members of the assembly
were out to blackmail him and his
administration denied that they were out to
blackmail the governor as he alleged.
According to him “They want to borrow
money now. I am a member of the
Appropriation Committee.
“They want to borrow N30 billion, but if they
fail to do what we want, we will not allow that
to happen. Out of the money, they said they
want to repair the Accountant General’s office,
but they don’t want to repair the independent
arm of government. It is not going to happen.
The worst is that they will not give us second
term but we will do what the people of Ondo
State like.
“The truth of the matter is that, that place
needs attention. The way they merged the issue
of snake with the collapsed part of the building
is the issue. The termites have eaten the roof of
the building. The governor accused us of
blackmail, why is it that the past leadership of
the House has not done anything about it. Every
year they put renovation of the Assembly in the
budget and it was not implemented. The
executive brings in budget and you passed it.
The place where the budget is passed is termite
infested.
“It is not going to be business as usual. That
is my own stand as the spokesperson of the
House. Do they not repair their own offices?
There was a snake on Wednesday. On Thursday
when we were about to sit, we discovered
termites have eaten the roof. The question is
that, termite did not start eating in the last two
years. It has been the failure of the leadership
of the House in the past Assembly.
“The truth is that they will give them small
money and they will pass the budget, the one
that concern them will not be addressed. We
are not going to take that this time around.
“We cannot, because we are friends to the
governor, not say the truth, they repair their
offices. Let us expose the leadership of the
House, the Speaker said money is voted for
the renovation every year, but it is not backed
with cash. They did not release money for repair,
yet you pass their budgets.
Rather than abate, the legislators fired again
at an urgent parliamentary meeting held at
the Speaker’s Lodge declaring that they
“would not waiver in their responsibility as
the representatives of the people of the state”
and “insisting on “total autonomy of the
legislative arm of government for proper
functioning.
The Speaker of the Assembly, Hon Bamidele
Oloyeloogun presided over the meeting, while
the communique was read by Hon Success
Torukerijo. The legislators lamented that the
Assembly complex was in a state of
dilapidation and needed urged renovation. It
is pitiable that the Ondo State House of
Assembly is the worst in terms of infrastructure
in the whole country. It will also interest the
public to know that the office of the speaker
and the deputy speaker have no official cars.
We reiterate the constitutional status of the
legislature as an independent arm of
government which therefore deserve to be
accorded as such.
“We want to state without any equivocation
that no fund has been released to the Assembly
for the capital projects in the last five years, in
spite of the yearly budgetary provision and
there has not been any cash-backing for the
renovation of the Assembly for the past 10 years.
They lamented that “the previous
administrations in the state had failed to
release money for the renovation of the
complex.
Not done the legislators accused the
government of doctoring the video tape of the
event that happened when the governor
inspected the Assembly complex after the snake
appearance to ridicule them.
PDP reacts
Meanwhile, the opposition Peoples
Democratic Party in the state in a statement
signed by its Director of Publicity, Zadok
Akintoye criticised the governor for portraying
the lawmakers as his “cowardly, ineffectual
and mindless errand boys.
Akintoye said “Mr Governor, you were way
out of line. You were completely out of order.
You carried your authority too far and abused
what should be the member’s natural
inclination to respect you as a leader. You
abused your authority. Perhaps you do not
realize it: You and these 26 members are the
only ones who truly carry the mandate of the
People. The people, it was, who trooped out to
elect them as they did you too. To speak to
them so condescendingly and so demeaningly
portrays you as a dictatorial individual.The
Legislature is an arm of government deserving
of respect and honour.
“Granted that the manner of the emergence
of some of those who are there now may have
been undemocratic and that you may have
had to pay good money to buy votes for most
of them, the truth is that ultimately the people
voted for them all in much the same way that
they voted for you.
“You poured expletives on them, asking them
questions like a mean headmaster telling off
an errant pupil. They came out looking that
little. Your action has done incalculable
damage to the integrity of that institution. You
showed your contempt and utter disdain for
the leadership and members of the House
when you charged in there like a bull telling
the whole world that they lied and were only
trying to blackmail your government. Akintoye
noted that “statesmanship demands that the
Governor does not conduct himself in such a
way to bring the institution into such disrepute
with the public as you did.
With the governorship election coming up
next year, political observers argued that the
legislators may be dancing to the tunes of some
powerful forces within and outside the state
who were desperate to deprive Akeredolu a
second term in office. The question on the lips
of the people of the state is who blinks first,
Akeredolu or the 26 legislators?. Time will tell.