by crossriverwatch admin
Information reaching CrossRiverWatch say 18 out of the 25 members of the Cross River State House of Assembly have asked the Speaker of the House Hon. Larry Odey to resign or face impeachment. CrossRiverWatch gathered that the crises started after the approval of the resolution that the governor sent to the House to approve a N40billion Bond Issue for the state government to enable it renegotiate the state debt.
The 18 members who have now named themselves G-18 members, who are all not part of the Principal Officers of the House are accusing the Speaker and other principal officers of highhandedness and not carrying them along in the decision to approve the Bond. Irked by the development, they have started collecting signatures to pressurize the speaker to resign or they will commence impeachment proceedings against him.
The G-18 also raised some ten point demands which the speaker must address immediately if he must continue in office. According to one member of the G18 who did not want to be named, he told CrossRiverWatch that, “the demands are basically welfare issues of the members. There are certain payments that we are entitled to that are not supposed to be pending for whatever reason. But the Hon. Speaker has allowed all of these to accumulate, leaving us to suffer in silence. We are also requesting that the salaries of our PAs be increased among other things.
“We have given him the ten point demands. He ran to the governor. The governor intervened and called a meeting between us and the leadership of the House. They still sidelined us, sent selective sms to those they wanted at the meeting and refused to invite us for the meeting; suggesting that there is a hidden agenda.
“His Excellency has actually intervened and asked us to go and settle our matters in the House. The leadership of the party, through the State Chairman, Ntufam John Okon as well as the Deputy Governor, Efiok Cobham have also intervened to ask us to sheath the sword but we insist that certain conditions must be met by the Speaker first before we can consider changing our minds.”
When CrossRiverWatch contacted the Speaker, Hon. Larry Odey, he was initially reluctant to comment on the matter but he later confirmed that there is a crisis in the House. “I am not aware of any signature collection but I’m aware that we have some internal crisis that we are still settling”.
The members are expected to have another meeting with the Deputy Governor later today to see how the matter can be resolved.
follow us on twitter @crossriverwatch
Leave feedback about this