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Delta House of intrigues
Olamilekan Lartey
The fresh, luscious green grass, the well manicured flowers, the gleaming automobiles in the two car parks and the flurry of visitors give the impression that the Delta State House of Assembly is an establishment that is accessible. That, of course, is if the policemen brandishing automatic rifles and the dirty and disused fountain are ignored. For the unwary, the Delta State House of Assembly is a chamber of young and determined minds, united by the common purpose of delivering quality service to the people of the state. The backslapping, quiet hum of the lawmakers and the exchange of banters on the winding corridors of the complex present the facade of a united legislature.
But this is far from the truth. The Delta State House of Assembly is one house of discord where endless intrigues play out regularly. The intrigues in the legislature, observers say, is not based on principles but the lure of lucre and, perhaps, power play. Whereas in some other states of the federation, the source of headache for the lawmakers had been the constant face-off with the executive arm of government, the Delta State House of Assembly does not have such a problem. In fact, they have come to be dubbed The Ibori Bombers ostensibly because of the members� support for the state Governor, Chief James Ibori. This, however, is not surprising considering the fact that majority of the members belong to the Peoples Democratic Party on which platform Ibori was elected.
The travails of the House is, therefore, to be located among its 29 members. Two times in less than 10 months, attempts, or alleged attempts, had been made to impeach the Speaker, Mr Young Igbrude, and other principal officers of the House. Many times, members of the House had been suspended on allegations of conducts that were against the spirit of �the honourable house.�
Last year, Igbrude went on a trip and rumours reverberated round the state capital, Asaba, that some lawmakers had perfected plans to impeach him. Named in the plot then were the Majority Leader, Mr Ossai Ossai and the member Representing Oshimli North, Mrs. Chinwe Monu-Olanrewaju,
The Deputy-Speaker, Mr Pius Ewherido, who then was at the helm of affairs, denied that there were any such moves. Ewherido advised journalists to always crosscheck their facts before publishing. Needless to say, Igbrude hurried back from the overseas trip. The matter was hushed up as a �family affair.� Attempts to get to the root of the matter were politely rebuffed. But a week later, the rumpus claimed its first and only victim. The Clerk of the House, Dan Okenyi, was unceremoniously removed for reasons not unconnected with the alleged impeachment plot. A statement from the governor�s office said he had been redeployed, according to civil service regulations.
On June 1 this year, news suddenly broke that while the lawmakers were away on an official trip to the United States of America, attempts had been made to lobby them to impeach the principal officers of the House once again. That in itself was a shock because the House had been on a nine-week recess during which all the members travelled to the US and were scheduled to resume on June 3.
There were allegations of bribery and counter allegations. The story was denied at first but when it became clear the office of the Speaker was threatened, Igbrude himself confirmed that there was indeed a plot but that �measures were being taken to checkmate those behind the plot.� But on Thursday, June 3, at the first sitting of the Second Session of the Third Assembly, after a nine-week recess, four members of the House were suspended for allegedly plotting �to remove the leadership of the House by unconstitutional means.�
Those suspended that morning by a unanimous decision of the House were the former Speaker, Mr Basil Ganagana, Patani Constituency; Mr Ovie Agas, Ughelli North 11; Mr. Misan Ukubeyinje, Warri North Constituency; and Mr. Ojaife Odebala, Sapele Constituency. The four lawmakers were accused of plotting with some chieftains of the PDP in the state to forcefully change the leadership of the House. Also fingered in the plot was a special adviser to the governor from Warri North and another strong member of the party from Sapele. The PDP chieftains were alleged to have trailed the lawmakers to the state of Mississippi, in the US, where they approached and recruited the four lawmakers to execute the plot.
The grouse of the PDP may be traced to another intrigue that had rocked the Assembly in December last year. The House, without warning, dissolved the 25 local government transition committees and handed their control to the Head of Personnel Management of the respective councils. This was clearly against the interest of the PDP as the affected transition chairmen had allegedly given N700,000 each to the party with assurances that the PDP would prevail on the lawmakers to reverse the decision so that they would retain their jobs until the local government election was conducted.
In the two weeks that the imbroglio lasted, tension gripped the state as the House did not succumb to pressure. The PDP threatened to recall some of the lawmakers. �These are people we put there, they now think they are more powerful than the party,� one party chieftain said at the peak of the crisis. In a swift move, the party suspended four members of the House for their roles in the dissolution of the transition committees. They were Ossai; Mr. Gibson Akporehe, Ethiope West, who moved the motion; Mr. Frank Enokoraghe who seconded it; and the Chief Whip, Mr. Efe Afe.
In a counter move, all the PDP lawmakers fired back that they too considered themselves suspended from the party because the decision was unanimous. �Since all the 29 honourable members unanimously dissolved the transition committees, for which our members have been suspended, we the entire 29 members of the House, consider ourselves collectively suspended and we shall not attend any disciplinary committee proceedings,� the House resolved. The House also warned that it would not hesitate to invoke its full powers to sanction the party leaders if they did anything in contempt of the House.
Our correspondent gathered that it took the intervention of Ibori to broker peace. But since then, the Dr. Pius Sinebe-led-PDP Delta State executive committee had vowed to remove the principal officers of the House.
After the suspension of the four members, a committee, headed by one of the bright stars in the House, Mr. Frank Enekorogha, Burutu 1 Consituency, was set up to investigate the allegations against the suspended lawmakers. By the afternoon of the same day, the PDP too had also set up a parallel panel to investigate the crisis in the legislative body. Since then, the House had not known peace.
Allegations of deceit, backstabbing and betrayal are permanent traits of the Delta State House of Assembly. Recently, the House passed a bill endorsing the establishment of development committees as a way of finding a lasting solution to the crisis in the three Warri local government areas. But during the proceedings, the three representatives of the area staged a walk out. The members representing Warri South I, Mrs. Omawunmi Udoh; Mr. Daniel Mayuku, Warri South-West, and Mr. Misan Ukubeyinje, Warri North, claimed they had been betrayed because the bill they deliberated upon was not the one passed by the House. They alleged that despite the public hearing that took place on the decision to establish development committees, the outcome was the view of some selected members of the House.
The Delta State House of Assembly was one that brooked no opposition. Recently, senior officers of the House went to the state-owned newspaper, The Pointer, to ask for the immediate redeployment of the Assembly correspondent, Mr. Tony Eke, over a story they found offensive. Eke was declared a persona non grata and �a threat to the safety of legislators in the state� over a satire he did on the proficiency of the lawmakers in English language.
But as the latest crisis �pursued� the Speaker and other principal officers of the House like a possessed spirit from the US back home some few week ago, Igbrude was forced to acknowledge that the press had saved his job by promptly exposing the plotters. What he did not admit, however, was that the press had also exposed the truth that a house divided against itself would soon come crashing down.
The PUNCH, Thursday, July 8, 2004.
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The President-elect of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo
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