Oshiomhole accuses PDP of causing crisis in Edo

Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole on Tuesday described the current
political crisis rocking the state as the handiwork of "elements" who

had defected from the All Progressives Congress to the Peoples
Democratic Party.
Oshiomhole said this during a town hall meeting organised by the state
government at Imagwe College in Benin, the Edo State capital.
Present at the meeting were members of the state executive council,
state House of Assembly members, traditional and religious leaders,
market women, civil society groups, labour unions and youths.
The governor said that both the PDP and APC had co-existed peacefully
prior to the defection of some members of the APC, including some
members of the Edo State House of Assembly, to the PDP.
He said that four of the lawmakers, Messrs Festus Ebea (Esan
South-East), Friday Ogieriakhi (Orhiomwon-South), Patrick Osayimwen
(Oredo-East) and Jude Ise-Idehen (Ikpoba Okha) were suspended for
misconduct, in accordance with the extant rules of the Edo State House
of Assembly.
The governor described as unfortunate the "grossly unhelpful
recalcitrance" of some of the state lawmakers whom he said refused to
obey court orders, even when some of the injunctions granted in their
favour were obeyed by the leadership of the House.
He lamented that the leadership of the PDP chose to deepen the
disagreement among the state lawmakers so as to create maximum
distractions, even when the suspension of some lawmakers should have
been strictly considered as an internal affair of the state House of
Assembly.
He also recalled that three of the suspended lawmakers, Friday
Ogieriakhi, Patrick Osayimwen and Jude Ise-Idehen, had approached the
Federal High Court, sitting in Benin City, and obtained an interim
order to restrain the Speaker of the House, Uyi Igbe, from declaring
their seats vacant, in line with Section 109 of the 1999 Constitution,
as amended, having decamped from the APC to the PDP and from
suspending them following alleged misconduct on disciplinary grounds.
He said, "The Speaker, Rt. Honourable Uyi Igbe complied in full with
these court orders. The Motion on Notice was afterward argued at the
Federal High Court, sitting in Benin City. The Court ordered that the
Speaker should not declare vacant the seats of three of the lawmakers,
pending the hearing and determination of the case filed by the three
members.
"The Court however vacated the interim ex parte order restraining the
Speaker from suspending the three members on disciplinary grounds and
they were so suspended.
"However, the four honourable members have refused to abide by the
suspension order and continue to hold illegal sittings in the House of
Assembly Complex, which is undergoing renovation, with the connivance
of five other valid PDP lawmakers and the aid of the Nigeria police."
On the detention of the Speaker, Majority Leader and the Chief Whip by
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the governor wondered
why the anti-graft agency decided to beam its searchlight on the
alleged forgery of the signature of a member of the House, which he
described as the lawmakers' internal affair.
The governor said, "Our own EFCC is now Economic Financial and alleged
Political Crimes Commission. I am still unable to understand how EFCC
assumed responsibility to investigate impeachment of a deputy speaker;
that is how far the EFCC has degenerated.
"When armed robbers are the ones looking for thieves, then the story
will change. We are watching how things will go. We have assembled a
legal team to take the EFCC to court to challenge their authority to
become a political commission.
"We will fight them on our feet and never beg them on our knees."
source-punchng.com