Ex-Speaker accuses Fayose, Assembly of blackmail

Ex-Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly, Adewale Omirin, has said that the public show made of the rejection of his letter to the House  seeking the reversal of his impeachment was an attempt to blackmail him.

He said that governor Ayodele Fayose, the Speaker, Hon Kola Oluwawole, and the Clerk of the Assembly, Mr. Tola Esan, had fore-knowledge of the letter he wrote requesting reversal of his impeachment, wondering why they had to make a public show of a legitimate request.

Omirin had, in a letter dated October 15, 2015 and addressed to the Speaker of the Assembly, prayed the House to revert his November 20, 2014 impeachment by seven members of the immediate past House of Assembly and restore all his rights and privileges.

The ex-speaker also urged the Assembly to obliterate the records of the factional speaker, Hon Dele Olugbemi, describing his emergence as a constitutional infarction that should not be contemplated under a democratic setting.

Speaking in Ado-Ekiti during a visit to the secretariat of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Omirin said he had earlier been advised by top members of the party to go to court on the issue, following which he instructed his lawyer to contact the Clerk of the Assembly to request for the extract of November 20, 2014, sitting when the impeachment was carried out.

Omirin alleged that the House, which saw the coming litigation as too diversionary to the current Assembly agreed to begin a  process of reversing the impeachment through legislative procedure, which compelled him to write the letter as an instrument for the house to work with.

The Chairman, House Committee on Information, Hon. Gboyega Aribisogan, who responded to Omirin’s allegation said : “As far as this House is concerned, no discussion took place between Omirin and Governor Fayose, the Speaker and the Clerk before the letter was brought to the Assembly.

“What the House did was to react to the letter we deliberated upon and which we published and this should not be mistaken for blackmail.

“We don’t want the matter to be subjected to rumour. The letter is a document of the House and we can do whatever we like with it.”