Adams Oshiomole, National Chairman of All Progressive Congress declared that he will not blindly support Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State in his persistent determination to preserve Mr Frank Okije as speaker of the state House of Assembly.
However the Edo State government have insisted that only the judiciary can make such declaration.
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The Vangard reports that, Oshiomhole in a statement made yesterday through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Simon Ebegbulem, said:
“First of all, Okije is not the Speaker, he is a member-elect. I watched the governor say those things but the truth of the matter is that he knows better than that.
“The question I will put to you is: is it within the discretion of a state governor to decide who becomes the speaker? The only option for him is to lobby and if he lobbies and at the end he is unable to get everybody to toe his line, he has to concede as these are not his commissioners or special assistants for which he has absolute monopoly to appoint.
“But even at that, if they are commissioners, they must be screened by the House of Assembly, that is the law. So if he chooses to put it in the manner that he has unfortunately put it, giving the impression that as the governor he can do everything, is there anything in the constitution that you know that empowers a governor to decide who becomes a speaker?
“But, like every other person in a democracy, you get what you are able to negotiate, the operative word is negotiation, persuasion, that is what we did in Abuja. Despite all the efforts we invested at the federal level, incidentally as the chairman, I was active in that, we conceded in the end when Senator Ndume said he would not go the way the party wanted. We could not deny him that right to contest and he went and contested and he got 24 votes.
“So, that is the way to go, it was not within the powers of the president and Commander-in-Chief to use state instrument to prevent Ndume from contesting because it is his right so to do.