• CRPP condemns move, warns against anarchy in state
• Oshiomhole denies involvement
The Edo House of Assembly, yesterday, commenced impeachment proceedings against the Deputy Governor of the state, Philip Shaibu.
The Majority Leader, Charity Aiguobarueghian, who announced the impeachment notice during plenary, said that the petition, dated March 5, was signed by 21 out of the 24 members against the deputy governor.
Aiguobarueghian stated that the number of members who signed the petition were more than the two-third requirement stipulated in the Constitution.
He also announced that the petition was based on two grounds of perjury and disclosure of government secrets.
The Speaker of the House, Blessing Agbebaku, who acknowledged receipt of the petition, directed the Clerk of the House, Yahaya Omogbai, to serve the impeachment notice on Shaibu. Agbebaku also gave the deputy governor seven days to respond to the notice of impeachment.
Meanwhile, the Coalition of Registered Political Parties (CRPP) in Edo State, yesterday, warned against any attempt to commence impeachment proceedings against Shaibu, saying: “It can ignite a chain reaction, which can lead to anarchy.”
Emerging from an emergency meeting in Benin City, the CRPP Chairman, Samson Isibor, and Secretary, John Isidhaome, in a statement they signed, said: “We implore the governor to jettison the idea of impeachment and work towards peaceful transition of power to the next governor of the state.
“As far as we are concerned, the deputy governor has not committed any impeachable offence or breached his oath of office.”
Meanwhile, former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and ex-governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole, yesterday, denied being part of a renewed plot to impeach his former godson, Shaibu.
In a statement by his media aide, Victor Oshioke, yesterday, in Abuja, which was made available to journalists in Benin, Oshiomhole said that he would neither have been concerned nor bothered by what methods the dramatis personae in the factional feud within Edo PDP employed to settle scores among themselves, but for a story on social media, which unceremoniously linked him to a purported plan by Obaseki to instigate impeachment proceedings against Shaibu.
Oshiomhole said that he was compelled to clarify and set the record straight, because in the said story, it was falsely claimed by the reporter that Obaseki had contacted Oshiomhole to help him lobby and talk to the APC lawmakers in the House to support the impeachment move against Shaibu, since he and the deputy governor are not in good terms with the Edo North Senator.”
