A member of the Ondo state House of Assembly representing Odigbo constituency 1, Olatunji Ifabiyi has said that the speaker of the house, Olamide Oladiji turned down several warnings and advice given to him against endorsing governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa’s governorship ambition without consulting other lawmakers in the house.
Ifabiyi stated this while featuring on a programme on Radio Nigeria positive FM Akure, monitored by Roving Reporters.
The Speaker had on Tuesday declared support for Governor Aiyedatiwa on behalf of 18 lawmakers, a development that sparked reaction of 12 lawmakers, passing vote of no confidence in the speaker.
Answering questions on why the 12 lawmakers passed votes of no confidence in Oladiji, Ifabiyi explained that the speaker had mortgaged the political future of other lawmakers by his actions without seeking their approvals.
He said, “For the record, we( the whole House) have not held any meeting where we arrived at the decision of giving our nods to any of the aspirants. We have numerous aspirants within the party, about 18 of them, struggling to get the ticket of our party.
“Every lawmaker has leaders of various interests and we are looking forward towards getting aggregate leadership support where there would be unanimous decision to support an aspirant who will now emerge as the candidate of our party and will be generally acceptable.
“But for Mr Speaker on his own volition to just now come out and say in the interest of the whole house, we are supporting, even including some of the PDP members who have their own party, indicting them that they were all part of the endorsement, it is wrong. That was why we passed votes of no confidence in the speaker.
“He is one among equals. He doesn’t have any special thing than any of us. He is only representing the image of the house of assembly but he cannot on his own volition talk about our political interests. He has no such right. He has to consult us to give him go ahead with such declaration.
“He had done one saying APC caucus held meeting written by Gbegudu who is the secretary of the caucus that they were supporting governor Aiyedatiwa. I went to Mr Speaker and warned him that he could not do such thing, trying to mortgage our political future because we all have our future to protect politically. He can not mortgage our future by taking affirmative statement about everyone of us, when we did not agree to that.
”Therefore, it is against parliamentary norms for you to declare an affirmative statement on behalf of all of us.
”Where did he get the 18 lawmakers that he is claiming were in support of his actions? We have been warning him against such actions.
“The Speaker knows the implication of the vote of no confidence. He is my friend but he can not mortgage my future. I will not take that.”
