
The Ekiti State House of Assembly Speaker, Gboyega Aribisogan, has been sacked by members of the House.
Aribisogan was sacked on Monday barely after six days in office as Olubunmi Adelugba was elected as the new Speaker. Seventeen out of the 25 members impeached the Speaker and elected a new one; Olubunmi Adelugba.
The Assembly Complex was earlier sealed as members were embroiled in a controversy following the death of the former Speaker, Funminiyi Afuye.
66-year-old Afuye had died at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital on October 19, after suffering cardiac arrest.
A month after his demise, the parliament held an election and Aribisogan, who is the representative of Ikole 1 Constituency in the Assembly and a two-term lawmaker, emerged.
Aribisogan had accused former Governor Kayode Fayemi of sponsoring some lawmakers to sack him.
On October 16, 2022, former Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti state handed over power at a colourful ceremony attended by big wigs of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and others to Mr. Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, the former Secretary to the Ekiti State Government who emerged as Governor-elect in the state’s June 18 Governorship election. Fayemi had completed his maximum two terms as Governor. He served as Governor, 2010 -2014, and also from October 2018 to October 2022. In-between, he was Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development. But since his departure in October, it may be correct to say that Ekiti has not been able to settle down to governance.
The shadow of the past hangs ominously over the present, complicating the crisis that we have seen in the difficulty of appointing/electing a new Speaker for the Ekiti State House of Assembly.
Students of Nigeria’s democratic process would readily admit that this is nothing new: getting a new Speaker for a State House of Assembly is always a war-like venture. The House of Assembly, the legislative assembly in the states, performs an oversight function over governments at that level, in addition to making good laws for good governance in defence of the people’s interest. But this is also precisely why governors, Godfathers and other stakeholders are perpetually interested in the leadership of the legislature. No reasonable Governor or his Godfathers would ever allow the legislature to fall into the hands of contrarian figures who in a moment or dangerous self-assertiveness could plot against the Executive arm and wrong-foot the Governor by holding him to ransom, impeach him or make it impossible for him to govern.