Cross River Assembly Attempts To Impeach Speaker

Mudiaga Affe, Calabar
There are indications that the Speaker of the Cross River State House of Assembly, Mr. John Gaul-Lebo, might be impeached following a crisis in the House.
It was gathered on Friday that majority of the lawmakers are aggrieved over the prolonged non-payment of welfare to members.
The bulk of the lawmakers had four days ago threatened to impeach the speaker.
The latest move will be the third time since assumption of office in June 2015 that the Speaker will be threatened with impeachment notice.
It was learnt that the majority of the legislators are piqued that after one year in office, they had yet to get their official cars, housing and wardrobe allowances as well as other entitlements.
One of the aggrieved members, who spoke anonymously, said his colleagues were also worried of the inability to sit and carry out constitutional duties due to lack of diesel and unavailability of office stationeries to run the legislature.
“Beyond all the grievances listed above, we do not sit regularly due to lack of electricity and office facilities to ease the business. It is a serious matter,” he said.
The source added that the civil servants in the Assembly were angry with the Speaker over plot to transfer some top officials for allegedly divulging the leadership’s financial transactions to other members of the House.
Another competent source told our correspondent that about 11 lawmakers, allegedly led by the Lawmaker representing Ikom 2 State Constituency, Mr. Simon Nkoro, are already shopping for signatures to make up 2/3 of the 25 lawmakers in the House in order to impeach the Speaker.
Most of the lawmaker said to be in support of the impeachment, according to the source further include members representing Calabar Municipality, Bakassi, Odukpani, Obudu, Akamkpa I and II and Calabar South II constituencies.
The source added that the aggrieved lawmakers and the leadership of the house have series of peace meetings with the Deputy Governor, Prof. Ivara Esu, and the party Chairman, Mr. Inok Edim, on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.
Reacting to the development, Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Mr. Nelson Ofem, confirmed that there was “discontent” in the House.
He, however, said that no impeachment notice had been served the Speaker.
Also speaking, the Chief Press Secretary to the Speaker, Mr. Azogor Ideba, said, “There is no problem in the house, a few members cannot just wake up and impeach the Speaker.”

Source:- punchng