The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has lampooned members of the House of Assembly over their protest in favour of Governor Ayodele Fayose arising from the investigation of the governor by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over alleged diversion of arms cash traced to his accounts and those of his family.
The APC said the members of the Assembly are tools in the hands of Fayose to subvert the tenets of democracy, probity in governance and to enable the governor a free rein in the misapplication of public funds for personal benefit.
Reacting to Wednesday’s protest by the Assembly members, who relocated their sitting to the public highway to protest the freezing of Fayose’s accounts by the EFCC over diversion of arms cash to personal accounts of the governor, the spokesman of the APC in Ekiti State, Taiwo Olatunbosun, said the action was a worst form of mediocrity and lack of integrity, adding that they have shown the whole world they belong to the gutter where they have moved the Assembly to.
Olatunbosun said the party was shocked that the representatives of the people could stand against the wishes of the same people who wanted allegation against the governor investigated to retrieve state’s funds to enable workers take the arrears of their six months salaries.
Regretting that members had proven the party right over fears it raised last year on the quality of the Assembly membership profile, Olatunbosun said the party had been vindicated in its claim that members lacked requisite competence, integrity and independence of the mind required for serious businessof law-making.
He said: “We are not surprised about the shameless theatrics of the rubber stamp Ekiti State House of Assembly members because they are behaving true to type as we predicted during their inauguration that nothing good would come out of this assembly because of the character and quality of individuals.
“It is a disservice to representative government that a group of lawmakers, who are expected to be loyal to their constituents, have jettisoned that cardinal principle of democracy and replace it with loyalty to an individual whose greed is inflicting untold sufferings onthe people of the state.
“We challenge the lawmakers, who have shamelessly constituted themselves to a nuisance by shifting their plenary to the street of Ado-Ekiti in protest against the Federal Government, to go to the EFCC office in Abuja to prove their innocence.”
Olatunbosun regretted that the Assembly had not passed any bill that is beneficial to Ekiti State citizens, including failing to defend the people when Fayose imposed suffocating taxes on them.
Regretting that members that should not have qualified to be councillors were those Fayose imposed as candidates in place of well-educated and exposed people to enable him exploit their ignorance for personal benefit, Olatunbosun listed instances where members displayed crass incompetence and acted as accomplices in the desecration of representative governance and tolerated abuses of the parliamentary practice and conduct to the chagrin of all Nigerians.
He said: “This is a house that did nothing when Fayose appeared in tattered jeans and T-shirt to present the 2016 budget and went ahead to pass same with his own improvised gavel.
“At the inauguration of the Assembly, Nigerians were shocked seeing members prostrating for the governor calling him their father while they had no say when the governor embarked on the airport project that was not in the 2016 Appropriation Law.”
Describing members as lacking integrity and accomplices in the promotion of alleged financial crime, over which they were defending the governor, the party wondered when answering for alleged crime against the state became a political persecution.
He said: “Many of the so-called Assembly members have many explanations to make concerning their academic qualifications and this is what they call persecution.
“This is a simple matter that only required presentation of certificates if they are actually genuine rather than politicising the issue.
“This is the same house that lied shamelessly to the whole world that DSS invaded the Assembly, shooting sporadically even though nothing of such happened, just the same way they lied that four of them were abducted whereas only one member was invited by the DSS.
”Olatunbosun dared the lawmakers to take their protest to Abuja if they are not afraid of the EFCC, just as they did when they protested in favour of Fayose at some foreign embassies.
He also berated the lawmakers for turning themselves to Fayose’s slaves to help him sustain his alleged crimes, wondering why members that had not taken salary for six months could defend a governor who routinely took his monthly N250 million security vote, while millions of naira were allegedly traced to the accounts of his family members by the EFCC.
He said: “It is unfortunate that the Assembly members have abandoned their primary role of law-making for professional street protest in favour of a man who has milked the state dry.
”This is the shame of a state reputed for accomplished intellectuals and men and women of substance, which is a fallout of the mistake of June 21, 2014 when Ekiti went to the dogs.”
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