Obaseki, Oshiomhole resume hostilities, impeachment plan resurfaces

A couple of months after Edo Gov. Godwin Obaseki and his predecessor and APC chairman Adams Oshiomhole kissed and made up, there are signs the two have yet to bury their hatchets.

Oshiomhole is insisting Obaseki has no constitutional backing to impose Edo Speakr Frank Okiye (PDP) on the majority APC in the state assembly.

In a chat with newsmen in Abuja on the weekend, the APC chairman vowed he will not close his eyes to illegal decisions and actions capable of derailing the nation’s democracy.

He said the governor should have lobbied the entire 24 members of the House, who are all APC members, so as to produce a Speaker of his choice.

According to him, inaugurating the House at 9:30pm with nine members was a rape on the nation’s democracy.

He, however, dismissed the allegations that plans are underway to impeach Obaseki.

“I watched the governor say those things but the truth of the matter is that he knows better than that. The question I will put to you is, is it within the discretion of state governor to decide who becomes the Speaker?

“The only option for him is to lobby and if he lobbies and in end he is unable to get everybody to toe his line, he has to concede that these are not his Commissioners or Special Assistants for which he has absolute monopoly to appoint,: he said on the debacle over the assembly inauguration.

“So if he chooses to put it in the manner that he has unfortunately put it, giving the impression that as the governor he can do everything. Is there anything in the constitution, that you know, that empowers a governor to decide who becomes a Speaker?”

He cited Sen. Ali Ndume whom  President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC couldn’t persuade to drop his Senate presidency ambition, because he had his rights to contest-—until he failed.

“I have absolutely nothing to gain if someone I told the people will do well end up not doing well or I make statement that contradicts my earlier position. Because all I have that I brought to this job called politics is integrity,’ he said.

“And integrity is about being consistent and sometimes being predictable. So Godwin knows that I have no quarrel whatsoever with him, but I do not think that it is right to inaugurate the House of Assembly at night.”

He warned that a day may come when a president may decide to order the military to secure the National Assembly and allow maybe a quarter of members to go in at 12 midnight to elect a Senate President and Speaker.

“That will be a sad day for democracy,” he said.