There was pandemonium in the hallow chamber of the Ogun State House of Assembly yesterday following attempts by the Speaker, Hon. Suraj Ishola Adekunbi, to suspend four members for allegedly infringing on the House rules.
The uproar witnessed on the floor of the House, which resulted in the breaking of the mace, was as a result of the crisis rocking the Assembly over the composition of members of the tenders’ board.
At the plenary yesterday, the Speaker, recalled an alleged unruly behaviour of four lawmakers during the previous sitting.
Adekunbi noted that four members- Hon. Job Akintan (Egbado North II); Hon. Remmy Hazzan (Odogbolu); Hon. Adijat Adeleye-Oladapo (Ifo II); and Hon. John Obafemi (Remo North); all walked out on all other members without taking a bow at the previous sitting.
He said the action was contrary to the rule of the House and that the four lawmakers deserved sanction.
The speaker alleged that their action was unparliamentary and a gross disrespect to the legislative institution and called on the Majority Leader, Hon. Israel Jolaosho, to move the motion for their suspension.
The majority leader, however, described their action as disrespectful to the office of the speaker and moved a motion for the suspension of the four lawmakers.
Before the speaker could call for secondment, however, one of the lawmakers alleged to have infringed on the House rule, Adeleye-Oladapo, who was sitting very close to the mace, headed for it and broke the symbol of authority of the House.
Hon. Adekunbi, however, went ahead and announced the suspension of the four members and immediately called for a recess.
While the lawmakers went for recess, the purportedly suspended four lawmakers along with 10 other legislators immediately reconvened under a group called G-14, appointed Hon. Remmy Hazzan, as Speaker Protem, and reversed the suspension order earlier pronounced by Adekunbi.
The protem speaker said that the earlier sitting of the House was null and void and called for a motion to suspend Adekunbi and three others.
The motion for the suspension of the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker, Tola Banjo, the Majority Leader, Israel Jolaoso and Olakunle Oluomo (Ifo I), was moved by Hon. Segun Elemide and was seconded by Samson Onademuren.
The G-14 lawmakers, under the leadership of Remmy Hazzan, who later addressed journalists, however, remarked that the four lawmakers were illegally suspended as there was no secondment to the motion that suspended them.
Hazzan said Adekunbi ought to have put the question before the House and consequently called for a voice vote, stressing that nothing of such was done.
Hazzan, who claimed that Adekunbi “does not possess unilateral power to suspend any member of the House,” also attributed the cause of the crisis to an attempt by the speaker to perpetuate fraud through award of contracts without following due process.
The G-14 lawmakers, who also alleged that the speaker had stood the Rule of the House on its head, further alleged that; “That is why he wants to impose his stooge on us as the Chairman of the Tenders Board,” stressing that “we will resist such move as lawmakers.”
Hazzan also attributed the rancour in the House to the insistence of some lawmakers to probe the actual debt profile of the state as required by the recently passed law.
He said the suspended speaker had wanted to suspend the four lawmakers to pave the way for his G-12 lawmakers to form a simple majority and consequently enjoy free amendment to the law which empowers the executive to access loan without recourse to the state assembly.
Meanwhile, attempt by journalists to get the speaker to react to the allegations and other happenings in the House, ended abruptly as the journalists were tear-gassed and sent away from the committee room of the Assembly complex. Oluomo, who represented the speaker, had used a foul language on one of the journalists, which triggered off responses from the newsmen.
National Mirror recalls that the previous House’s sitting on February 28, 2013 had ended abruptly with the speaker calling for adjournment following a rowdy session over the report on the composition of tenders’ board.
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