The Ekiti State House of Assembly has suspended the member representing Ikole Constituency I, Chief Gboyega Aribisogan, indefinitely for various offences the members said he was convicted of.
The Assembly addressed newsmen after it’s plenary on Tuesday, and said the lawmaker had been suspended indefinitely.
In a seven-point allegation, the house, through its chairman on Information, Dr Samuel Omotoso, said .Gboyega Aribisogan is hereby suspended indefinitely from the EKHA, having brought the institution to disrepute by his utterances and activities of late, acts unbecoming of an honourable member of EKHA.”
Omotoso added that “Aribisogan is hereby barred within one kilometre radius of the Ekiti State House of Assembly Complex till further notice” and that he “is hereby directed not to work or act as a legislator nor receive salaries or allowances during the period of this suspension.”
The Assembly added: “Aribisogan is hereby disallowed from holding any position of responsibility for the span of the current 5th Assembly,” and it directed that the Sergeant at Arms, “who is the Chief Security Officer of the House is hereby directed to take responsibilities in line with the standing orders of the EKHA.”
The Assembly said it was applying “these actions against Hon Aribisogan in line with the standing orders and the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as exercised in punitive measures against Hon Abdulmumin Jubrin and Senator Ali Ndume by our senior colleagues at the National Assembly in Abuja.”
However, Aribisogan, who addressed newsmen also on Tuesday, insisted that he was the minority leader of the house and he said he had “summoned Governor Ayodele Fayose to appear in the Assembly within 14 days to publicly relinquish his position as speaker or resign as governor.
Briefing newsmen in Ado Ekiti, Aribisogan who recently defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC), said that the governor was presently holding two executive positions.
He said the governor had come to the Assembly and had announced before the mace that he was the speaker, saying he must come to the Assembly to resign as Speaker before the 14 days ultimatum he issued in his capacity as the Minority Leader lapsed or he quit as governor.
Aribisogan had held that the speaker, Kola Oluwawole, having agreed with Governor Fayose by joining the remaining 24 members to say yes before the mace, the authority of the House, he had “voluntarily relinquished his position to the governor and therefore cannot continue to function as the Acting Speaker, a position that is reserved for the Deputy Speaker in the case of the Speaker’s absence.
“Therefore, Rt Hon. Kola Oluwawole must resign as the Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly immediately, because his continued stay in that position is a violation of the Standing Order of Ekiti State House of Assembly which states that there shall be no two Speakers in a State.”
But reacting to this, Speaker Oluwawole and Omotoso said there was “cultural understanding of Governor Fayose’s statement that he is the Speaker of the Assembly” was needed rather than a position by “Aribisogan, who has no status in law as far as the assembly is concerned because he is under suspension.”
and then