A coalition of civil society groups under the auspices of Lagos Liberation Movement (LLM) on Thursday threatened to occupy and shut down the Lagos State House of Assembly should lawmakers proceed with the impeachment moves against the State Governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, describing the action as anti-people and treasonable.
The
lawmakers had threatened to commence impeachment proceedings against the
governor over alleged gross misconduct particularly with regards to the
2019 budget of the State.
But addressing a world press
conference at the Airport Hotel in Ikeja, the groups which include
Campaign for Democracy (CD), United Action For Democracy (UAD), Centre
for Public Accountability (CPA), Democracy Volunteers (DV), Ajegunle
Collectives, Lagos People’s Assembly (LPA), Oodua Peoples Congress
(Reformed), Yoruba Revolutionary Assembly (YORA) and Ohanaeze Youth,
Lagos, said with the development, it was obvious that the Lagos Assembly
was becoming a political abattoir for the murder of democracy in
Nigeria.
LLM Convener, Comrade Mark Adebayo specifically accused a
national leader of All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
as being the architect of the impeachment saga, and urged all Lagosians
and genuine compatriots across the country to strongly resist the move
by the Lagos lawmakers against the governor.
He said it was
obvious that the whole saga was a direct assault by a few political
marauders determined to supplant democracy and jeopardize peace and
development in the State, and further perpetuate their political
dynasty.
According to Adebayo, “It is public knowledge that some
days ago, members of the House commenced what is tantamount to a game of
shame and senselessness, the results of which are predictably
destructive by the ill-advised commencement of impeachment process
against Governor Ambode.
“The question that most Lagosians
are asking is ‘why?’. However, the reasons are not farfetched: It is
fundamentally the handiwork and retrogressive machinations of political
forces of evil determined to keep Lagos State in perpetual bondage of a
man playing God over more than 20 million Lagosians with a view to
perpetuating a political dynasty of lootocratic recklessness, marauding
corruption and a relay regime of nepotistic subjugation accentuated by
an intractable malaise of primitive accumulation of the most deadly
genre, spearheaded, commanded, guided and goaded by Asiwaju Tinubu we
daresay.”
He said the coalition and indeed vast majority of
Lagosians were convinced beyond reasonable doubts that the allegations
against the governor by the lawmakers were unknown to the constitution,
but a move basically propelled desperately by few persons to have
unrestricted access to the state’s treasury to squander on their
political protégés running for public offices in the forthcoming general
elections.
While alleging that the current backlash against the
governor was over his refusal to comply with directive by his political
godfather to release several billions of naira for elections, Adebayo
warned Ambode never to contemplate leaving the state littered with
uncompleted projects, saying he still had enough time to complete most
of them before the expiration of his tenure on May 29, 2019.
He
also accused the lawmakers of having nothing to justify the huge sums
collected from government for constituency projects, just as he revealed
that a comprehensive petition had been put together to anti-graft
agencies and multilateral organizations for the Assembly to account for
the N800million being collected as monthly running costs, aside their
weekly and monthly allowances.
He also called on
President Muhammadu Buhari to prevail on Tinubu not to proceed with the
impeachment plan as such would be self-destructive, saying it was
important for the APC to sort out its internal conflicts without putting
the whole state into crises.
“We like to reiterate that Ambode
is the governor of Lagos State and not the governor of the APC. If they
have internal issues within their Party that should not be allowed to
negatively affect the smooth running of government and make people
suffer. The whole state cannot be reduced to the parochial shenanigans
of a highly corrupted political family.
“The office of governor
of Lagos State is beyond Ambode and as such any further humiliation,
disrespect and embarrassment from any quarter will be utterly resisted
by the people. Lagosians are unequivocal in their view that Ambode is a
performing governor based on his style of governance and project
execution, and as such, any further attack on him will be tantamount to
attacking the People. And no one can win against the people,” Adebayo
said.
Source:- Politicsngr
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