A chieftain of the Labour Party (LP) in Abia State, Hon. Ubani Dannie has accused Chief Uchenna Erondu (Igodo), a former Special Adviser on General Duties to Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, of being behind the leadership crisis rocking the Abia State House of Assembly.
According to him, the conflict that came with the purported impeachment of Hon. Chinedum Orji by some members of the House was not in the interest of the state but personal quest for leadership and position.
On Tuesday, some members of the House voted to impeach the Speaker, Chinedum Orji over what they termed gross misconduct and highhandedness.
The impeachment proceedings, carried out outside the House of Assembly complex was recorded in a video, which immediately went viral.
But in a swift reaction, the speaker convened and presided over a plenary session at about 3.00pm attended by eight other members, where he also announced the removal of the Deputy Speaker, Hon Ifeanyi Uchendu and other lawmakers in the “rebel” camp.
Hon Mandela Obasi, representing Ohafia North State constituency, was appointed the new Deputy Speaker.
However, in the impeachment video, the Deputy Speaker of the House, Hon Ifeanyi Uchendu presided over the proceedings during which Hon Kennedy Njoku moved the motion for the removal of the a speaker. The motion was seconded by Hon Chijioke Chukwu.
Njoku, who represents Osisioma state constituency, said Orji was no longer fit to continue in office as Speaker because of his insensitivity to the welfare of the members of the state legislature.
“I want to move a motion considering the present situation in the House of Assembly and the feelings of members towards the speaker of the 7th House, Engr. Chinedum Orji, of his insensitivity to the welfare of members and other sundry activities.
“It is clear to us that all these have led to gross misconduct on the office of the Speaker. Hence, I move a motion for the removal of the speaker,” he said, reading out a list of 18 members, out of 24, who signed for the impeachment of the speaker.
With Orji still holding sway as speaker backed by his loyalists and the rival group having its own Speaker in Hon Apugo, the 7th Abia Assembly is primed to end its term on a note of crisis.
Reacting to the crisis, Ubani, a former Commissioner for Youths and Sports accused Erondu of plotting to remove Orji in order to amend the House rules ahead of the 9th Assembly.
In a post on his Facebook page, Ubani wrote: “The plot to impeach Rt. Hon. Chinedum Orji was poorly hatched and equally poorly executed. Since one cannot give what he does not have, the hatching and execution of the plot was as poor as the plotters.
“The attempted impeachment was hatched by the Igodo, the accidental overnight billionaire aid of Gov. Ikpeazu. Since the dog cannot wag the tail, suffice it therefore to say that the plot had the full executive imprimatur of Gov. Ikpeazu. As always, Gov. Ikpeazu denied being in the know of the plot now that the center could not hold.
“To railroad the legislators into the plot, Igodo paid every law maker the sum of 4,000$. Contrary to what is being bandied about, the plotters did not muster the constitutionally required 16 members that would have constituted two third absolute majority.
“Like the criminal usurpers that they are, they forged the signatures of the following members:
“1. Hon. Stanley Nwabisi who incidentally is in far away Canada as at the time he purportedly signed the impeachment.
“2. Hon. Emeka Okorafor.
“3. Hon. Paul Taribo.
“WHY THEY WANT IKUKU IMPEACHED
“1. Though Rt. Hon. Chinedum Orji also lost his own election, the PDP power barons of Obingwa extraction still attribute a part of their party’s gubernatorial loss to Ikuku for which they want to take their pound of flesh.
“2. Gov. Ikpeazu and his handlers want the house to be reconvened in order to legalise some of their many atrocities by procuring legislative approval as required by law. Authoritatively, I can tell you that some crazy borrowings by this government were done without any recourse to the house; some extra budgetary expenses are still lacking legislative approval. These are all acts of brazen assault on fiscal responsibility, and amount to grave financial crimes. So, to run away from they envisage as the wrath of Otti they need to obtain legislative seal by whatever means in order to cover their rather visible tracks.
“3. The eclipsing government is laying some landmines against Dr. Otti’s incoming government. As such, Dr. Ikpeazu wants to enlist the legislative approval of the house for such landmines to withstand any likely judicial trial. Example of such landmines include getting the house to pass a supplementary budget that would accomodation the budget for the proposed local government election, approval for the constitution of the board of ASOPADEC etc.
“4. Getting the house to amend house rules to the effect of allowing new members to contest for speaker of the house in the 9th assembly. This is to pave the way for Igodo’s wild goose chase of becoming the speaker of the next assembly. Igodo had paid 30 million to some house members through a former speaker from Isiala Ngwa South State Constituency for the same purpose of amending the same house rule but all to no avail.”
