Members at war: Why Ondo Assembly crisis has yet to end

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Ondo State House of Assembly has been polarised by the plan of some members to remove the embattled Deputy Governor of the state, Mr. Agboola Ajayi, and the strong opposition of others, who were susequently suspended for standing against the planned removal. Peter Dada examines the situation in the state legislative chamber

After the March 2019 election that brought them in like many other Houses of Assembly in Nigeria, the current members of the Ondo State House of Assembly were inaugurated in June of the same year for a tenure of four years. While some were first timers, others were coming to the Assembly for the second and third terms.

It is worthy of note that the 26-member Assembly comprises members of the ruling All Progressives Congress, which has the majority with 23 members, the Peoples Democratic Party has two members, while the Zenith Labour Party is represented by one member.

The legislative business was ab initio going on smoothly in the Assembly as members were relating cordially with each other without any segregation along party lines. However, the honeymoon ended a few months ago following a leadership crisis that has yet to be resolved up till now.

Sequel to the crisis, members of the Assembly, who have been conspicuously divided, were now seeing each other as archenemies. Sadly, the principal actors in the centre of the crisis are members of the ruling party. This makes one wonder why the leadership of the party in the state cannot intervene to pacify the lawmakers.

But so far, the crisis in the Ondo Assembly is more political than legislative. It was observed that the upheaval was caused by the cold war between Governor Mr Rotimi Akeredolu and his deputy, Mr Agboola Ajayi, which has been lingering since the beginning of the year.