The rumoured
governorship ambition of the Speaker of Imo State House of Assembly, Acho Ihim,
has allegedly set him and a section of the lawmakers on a collision course.
The lawmakers
are demanding the immediate resignation or impeachment of the Speaker, who is
also president of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Africa Region.
But the media
aide to the speaker, Mr. Ben Ilochuonwu, has dismissed the alleged plot by some
lawmakers to impeach the speaker over his ambition to succeed Governor Rochas
Okorocha in 2019 as an unfounded rumour. He said the speaker has no governorship such
ambition.
He pointed out
that the speaker and members of the House have been working in harmony ever since
he was elected by his peers.
Daily Sun
reliably gathered that some aggrieved lawmakers who allegedly accused the
speaker of making the Assembly an extension of the Government House over his
alleged gubernatorial ambition, resolved
after a meeting at the home of a top politician in the state, to remove
the speaker if he failed to resign.
One of the
aggrieved legislators who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “We have never
had it so bad in this state where legislators have lost so much respect among
the populace because of the ambition of the speaker who has turned himself as
an aide of the governor. Because of his ambition to become governor in 2019, he
is undermining the powers of the legislature to the extent that allowances due
to members of the House are not paid to them.
“We have,
therefore, resolved to ask the speaker to resign honourably or we will be
forced to remove him in accordance with the constitution for incompetence.”
He said
process of getting the required two-third majority has begun.
The lawmaker
pointed out that they were not against the ambition of the speaker, but that it
must not be at the detriment of members of the House of Assembly.
It is only in
this dispensation that a speaker who is the number three man would be kept waiting
by the Chief of Staff of the governor, he lamented.
Meanwhile, one
of the allies of the Speaker, Henry
Uzoma Ezediaro, representing Oguta constituency, dismissed the alleged plot by
lawmakers to change the leadership of the Assembly. He said the speaker has
always ensured that members got their legitimate entitlements and that the
rumoured governorship ambition of the speaker was not true.
“There is no
problem in the House and there is no division. It is not true that members want
to impeach the speaker because we have been getting our legitimate entitlements
as at when due. So, it is nothing but a mere rumour.
“Besides,
there is nothing wrong if the speaker is nursing the ambition to be governor
but to say that some members of the House are plotting to impeach him on that
basis is totally false, as the speaker has never told anyone, to the best of my
knowledge, that he wants to contest for the governorship of the state in 2019.”
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