The Edo state House of Assembly Speaker, Francis Okiye has accused Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodimma of plotting to unleash violence in Edo state.
He said this while briefing newsmen in Benin, the Edo state capital.
After the impeachment of his deputy speaker, Rt.Hon.Yekini Idaiye, told journalists that there were plots by the Vice-Chairman of the APC Campaign Council, Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State to cause a crisis in the state by installing a parallel House of Assembly and make the impeached Deputy Speaker, Francis Okiye said that Idiaye with the sixteen lawmakers which included the members who have not been inaugurated and those who have been inaugurated but have refused to decamp with
Governor Godwin Obaseki and publicly
endorsed Ize-Iyamu.
He called on President Muhammadu Buhari to
call the governor and other APC stakeholders
to order on the alleged plot which he said was
capable of creating a crisis in the state.
He said; “The state’s polity is already heated
by the high political tension from the
electioneering campaigns. Their planned
action is akin to lightening a match in an
already tensed political environment, which
conflagration is capable of causing a crisis in
the state, and of a scale beyond our
imagination.
“We urge lovers of democracy across the
world, institutions that uphold democratic
tenets and values, pro-democracy groups, to
denounce this planned illegality that seeks to
distract a duly constituted authority.
“We recognize the constitutional right of the
three members of the House of Assembly to
support the candidate of their choice, but that
should not distract them from coming to work
to carry out the job they were elected for.”
Reacting to the allegations by the Edo state speaker ,Commissioner for Special Projects of
Imo State, Comrade Simon Ebegbulem denied
the allegation against his boss saying the house was in the first place illegally inaugurated just as he said all his principal is interested in is to reclaim Edo state back to APC.
He said: “The illegal Speaker and his governor
are not making sense to me with this baseless
allegation. I don’t even know what they are
talking about because there is no House of
Assembly in Edo state. I think that is why the
so-called Speaker is running away from his
shadow like a criminal that will always run
once he sees a law enforcement agent.
“However, I don’t know why he should draw
the leg of His Excellency, Governor Hope
Uzodinma into his political problems. My
Governor is interested in working with other
APC governors and stakeholders to reclaim
Edo State which has been an APC state before
Governor Obaseki donated it to the PDP.
“The illegal Speaker and his principal are
already jittery because of the imminent defeat
in the coming September election. You can see that his aides are resigning everyday including his
Deputy Speaker. Now he is left with five
lawmakers and does that show that he is in
charge?”
