Nigeria Content Online

The Edo State
chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the leadership of the
state House of Assembly yesterday differed over the reception of the
Edo State assembly’s speaker at the recently concluded Speakers
Conference held in Makurdi, Benue State.

A statement
yesterday by the PDP’s state director of publicity and strategy,
Okharedia Ihimekpen, commended the Speakers’ Forum for allegedly
sending out of the conference, Bright Omokhodion, Speaker of Edo State
House of Assembly on the ground that he was not the duly recognized
speaker of the state House of Assembly.

The statement said
since he was not recognised by the Speakers’ Conference, Mr. Omokhodion
should stop parading himself as the speaker.

“Bright Omokhodion,
you will recall, forcibly and with the tacit support and script written
by the AC led government but with less than the constitutional
two-third necessary tried to take over the speakership of the of the
Edo State House of Assembly,” the statement said. “The state assembly
has a speaker and that is the person of Zakawanu Garuba”.

Swift rebuttal

But in a swift
reaction yesterday, the senior special assistant (media) to Mr.
Omokhodion, Ralph Okhiria, denied the allegations that Mr Omokhodion
was not allowed into the conference as Edo State Speaker.

He said his boss
was only told not to be signatory to the communiqué, since issues
relating to his emergence as Speaker are still in court.

“All they have said
is not true,” he said. “First, we got our invitation card, we got there
and we were given accommodation, we were accredited and attended the
opening ceremony. The Speaker went with two other lawmakers, the
Majority Leader; Philip Shaibu and Etiosa Ogbewei who all participated
in deliberations.

“How could they
have said that when the same organisers even relocated the Speaker and
the lawmakers to another hotel when they complained that where they
were lodged was not good enough. The delegates were part of the team
that visited the governor, Gabriel Suswam and they were at the
entourage when the went on inspection of projects on two occasions. It
was the drafting of the communiqué that the PDP dominated conferences
said the Speaker should be excused not to sign the communiqué because
of the cases in court and this they said with sincere apologies asd
they said they don’t want to be seen as being involved in contempt of
court.”

Mr. Okhiria said the PDP statement is part of the plans of the
opposition party to continue to deceive the people “after they have
lost out in the state.”