EDO: Oshiomhole’s 14 lawmakers’ inauguration gives Obaseki headache

Edo Gov Godwin Obaseki has insisted he lacks the power to inaugurate the 17 lawmakers who he said refused to be inaugurated for over 180 days.

In the heat of their superiority battle, 14 APC lawmakers loyal to the party’s former national chairman Adams Oshiomhole, refused to be inaugurated by Obaseki along with the other state lawmakers. The group has been sitting separately since August.

Now that he’s won a second term, and the two leading parties are trying to compromise, the issue of bringing the 14 back remains knotty.

“We have a dissident group that people elected and refused to be inaugurated, they were not prevented. They were listening to their godfather who kept hoping and promising that he would unconstitutionally get the state House of Assembly to reissue a proclamation even after the court had settled the matter,” he told the PDP leadership on Monday.

“For more than 180 days they did not come. They refused to represent the people. Those seats became vacant; that’s what the constitution says. They went to court after those were declared vacant by the Speaker. There is nothing I can do that at this time. I wish it didn’t happen but people were playing god and promising what is not constitutional.

“I’m not one that plant people into the house of assembly, they on their own operated the rules the way it should be, the seats are now vacant.

“Even if I wanted today to bring them back, I don’t have such powers.”

The case was in court for the most part of Obaseki’s first term.

Whether he can inaugurate them in his second term is a matter of legal interpretation since inagration can only take place once in a term.