The Ekiti State House of Assembly has suspended its member, Honourable Olugboyega Aribisogan, representing Ikole Constituency I, indefinitely, as a result of “gross misconduct, lack of respect for the rules of the House and threat to lives of his supposed colleagues.”
The decision followed intractable differences between the embattled former lawmaker, his colleagues and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) under which he contested for the position.
The House, at a plenary on Tuesday, in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, after considering the report of a Special Investigation Committee on the Review of Honourable Gboyega Aribisogan’s 180 Legislative Days Suspension, unanimously resolved that Aribisogan should be suspended indefinitely.
Chairman of the committee, who represents Gbonyin constituency in the House, Honourable Ayodele Fajemilehin, while reading the report on the
floor of the House, said after considering the facts before it, particularly the invasion of the House premises by the lawmaker while his suspension for gross misconduct was yet to lapse, among others, the committee, at its 3rd July 2017, decided to call Aribisogan to appear before it on July 6th.
He said apart from making the call and sending text messages, the committee also wrote a formal letter, but Aribisogan refused to appear before the committee which sat on the same day between 9.00 am and 6.00 pm.
He added that the lawmaker did not issue any
correspondence, “despite the fact that his suspension was supposed to end on the 17th of August, 2017, and the fact that the fact that on 15th July, the House passed a resolution re-affirming his suspension and warned against his appearance within one kilometer radius of the
Assembly.”
Thereafter, the House voted to admit the report as a document of the House and that there ought to be a debate over it.
During the debate over the report, all the members of the Assembly, in their submission, recalled all the atrocities of the banished lawmaker, maintaining that laws were made to rein in errant members of the society and that anyone found culpable ought to be punished to serve as deterrent to others.
They cited the case of a member of the House of Representatives who was similarly suspended for 180 legislative days weeks before that of Aribisogan came up who had not threatened to resume before the former
Ekiti lawmaker did so by taking laws into his hands by storming the Assembly in “apparent lack of knowledge of the House Rules.”
The speaker of the House, Right Honourable (Pastor) Kola Oluwawole, summarized that “having brought the law-established institution to disrepute, odium and disrespect, Aribisogan should be suspended indefinitely.
“He should not be seen within one kilometer radius of the Assembly. He should also not perform any legislative duty or receive any payment therefrom during the time. The Seargent-at-arms should take note of this.
“We also call on all law enforcement agencies to take cognizance of this.” The House passed this submission as one of its resolutions and thereafter proceeded on a six week recess from the day of the last sitting.
