The face-off between the members of the Ondo state House of Assembly and Governor Rotimi Akeredolu over the invasion of the chambers by snakes deepened yMonday as the lawmakers fired back by threatening to stop his request to borrow N30b to fund capital projects.
Speaking with newsmen in Akure, the chairman of the House Committee on information, Hon Gbenga Omole said the lawmakers would not approve the request if the governor declines their request for a better and conducive environment to carry out their legislative duties.
Omole who was responding to the governor’s allegation that the members of the assembly were out to blackmail him and his administration denied that they were out to blackmail the governor as he alleged.
According to him “They want to borrow money now. I am a member of the Appropriation Committee.
” They want to borrow N30 billion. If they did not do what we want, we will not allow that to happen. Out of the money, they said they want to rehabilitate Accountant General’s office, you want to repair the Accountant General’s office, you don’t want to repair the independent arm of government.
“It is not going to happen. The worst is that they will not give us second term but we will do what the people of Ondo State like.”
“The truth of the matter is that that place needs attention. The way they merged the issue of snake with the collapsed part of the building is the issue. The termites have eaten the roof of the building.
“To set the record straight, we never sat on Wednesday and Thursday. Actually, we wanted to sit on Thursday, but when we came in some part of the roof had caved-in.
” I granted the interview that on Wednesday that there was a snake and we could not sit, it is not that snake chased us out of the chamber. That was what everybody wrote. Journalists have liberty to write what they wanted to write.
“On the issue of termite, everybody knows that place needs a facelift; that is a fact that the governor knows. It is the joining of snake with termite that embarrassed the governor.
“The governor accused us of blackmail, why is it that the past leadership of the House has not done anything about it.
“Every year they put renovation of the Assembly in the budget and it was not implemented. The executive brings in budget and you passed it. The place where the budget is passed is termite infested.
“It is not going to be business as usual. That is my own stand as the spokesperson of the House. Do they not repair their own offices? There was a snake on Wednesday. On Thursday when we were about to sit, we discovered termites have eaten the roof. The question is that termite did not start eating in the last two years. It has been the failure of the leadership of the House in the past Assembly.
“The truth is that they will give them small money and they will pass the budget, the one that concerns them will not be addressed. We are not going to take that this time around.
” We cannot say because we are friends to the governor we will not say the truth, they repair their offices. Let us expose the leadership of the House, the Speaker said money is voted for the renovation every year, but it is not backed with cash. They did not release money for repair, yet you pass their budgets.
Recall that governor Akeredolu during a visit to the Assembly said ” You said snake chased you out of this place and that you adjourned sine-die. How did you combine what happened here yesterday with your snake if it is not grand connivance by yourselves?
“How did you come about snake yesterday and day before yesterday? How did you combine it and said snake fell on your head? The media took your point and said snake fell on you and you all kept quiet. This House has stayed here for several years. If termites go into this place and eat it, no doubt unless you treat this place for termite, it will fall down.
“What I have come to do is to verify what has happened. I have seen that what has happened is that there is an attempt to blackmail the state and I think the government will not take it. I was given the facts and I want to be sure that the Speaker and that most of the officers are here.
“No snake fell here yesterday or day before yesterday, they were not sitting when the ceiling came down. They only met the ceiling that it came down. It was not that they were sitting. And all the pictures that were put up there are fake.
“There was no sitting; the ceiling did not collapse while they were sitting. How did you come about that story? How did you come about putting one giant snake or python; it does not exist here. How did you come about it?
“There is an attempt to blackmail the government and I don’t believe that is the best approach. This is an arm of government and they have their vote and what they are entitled to, is the one we give them.
“This place is termite invested and certainly, the termites have been dwelling here for several years. We have just come for two years; there is no way termites’ infestation in two years would cause such destruction.
“Something is wrong, this place has not been maintained and members of the House have always been here, what have they done about the maintenance of this place? If they have not been concerned about it, we have to sit down at the table and work things out
Meanwhile, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party in the state in a statement signed by its Director of Publicity, Zadok Akintoye criticised the governor for portraying the lawmakers as his ” cowardly, ineffectual and mindless errand boys.
Akintoye said “Mr Governor, you were way out of line. You were completely out of order. You carried your authority too far and abused what should be the member’s natural inclination to respect you as a leader. You abused your authority.
” Perhaps you do not realize it: You and these 26 members are the only ones who truly carry the mandate of the People. The people, it was, who trooped out to elect them as they did you too. To speak to them so condescendingly and so demeaningly portrays you as a dictatorial, hitlerish individual who imagines himself only next to God in importance.
” The Legislature is an arm of government deserving of respect and honour. Granted that the manner of the emergence of some of those who are there now may have been undemocratic and that you may have had to pay good money to buy votes for most of them, the truth is that ultimately the people voted for them all too in much the same way that they voted for you.
” Your Excellency, you poured expletives on them, asking them questions like a mean headmaster telling off an errant pupil. They came out looking that little!
” Your action has done incalculable damage to the integrity of that institution.
” You showed your contempt and utter disdain for the leadership and members of the House when you charged in there like a bull telling the whole world that they lied and were only trying to blackmail your government.
Akintoye noted that “statesmanship demands that the Governor does not conduct himself in such a way to bring the institution into such disrepute with the public as you did.
