CSOs warn Lagos Assembly over Governor Ambode’s impeachment

Following the one week ultimatum the Lagos State House of Assembly gave Governor Akinwumi Ambode to respond to alleged financial impropriety and breaches of the 1999 Constitution, some civil society groups, yesterday, vowed to invade the House if it continued with its plan to impeach Ambode.

The Lagos State House of Assembly, on Monday, threatened to commence impeachment proceedings against Ambode over alleged gross misconducts and gave him the ultimatum, which will lapse on Monday, February 4.

Addressing a press conference titled Lagos State House of Assembly is becoming a political abattoir for murder of democracy in Nigeria, the Lagos Liberation Movement, LLM, in conjunction with the Campaign for Democracy, CD; United Action for Democracy, UAD; and DV warned the lawmakers against commencing the impeachment process because it “is embarking on a voyage that can only have a disastrous end for them and their external collaborators.”

In his address, Comrade Mark Adebayo said: “The political situation of Lagos State has become untenably desperate and requires the immediate attention of all true Lagosians and genuine compatriots across Nigeria. This is no time for fence-sitting. This is no time to claim political insulation or neutrality aka siddon look.
“What we are witnessing by this ego-tripping and dangerous game of potentially unquantifiable crises is orchestrated by selfish interests of one or very few dramatis personae who are desperate to have unrestricted access to the state’s treasury to squander on their political protéges running for public offices in the 2019 elections in the state and outside the state.

“We, hereby, warn the governor never to contemplate leaving the state littered with uncompleted projects after his tenure in May 29, 2019. We make bold to say that he has enough time to complete most of the pro-people projects he embarked on that are nearing completion.
“Moreover, we have noticed with disturbing disappointment the absence of constituency projects despite the assembly members collecting large sums of state funds under the guise of executing constituency projects.

“LLM and our coalescing organizations are embarking on a thorough inspection of all constituency projects for which funds have been released in the last 12 years and will make a comprehensive report of our findings public in the coming period. He who comes to equity must come with clean hands. Therefore, all the members in state Assembly must be prepared to account for every Naira they have collected since their inception (at different dates) till date.
“We like to reiterate that Ambode is the governor of Lagos State and not the governor of the APC.”
This is tragicomedy —Agbaje
Also reacting to the impeachment threat against the Ambode, governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Lagos, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, asked the legislators and the ruling APC not to plunge the state into chaos over moves to impeach the Governor.
Agbaje who sued for peace, said the move was capable of jeopardising the smooth running of the state.

“Of course, the way Lagos politics has been structured over the last two decades, government actions are often dictated by open and covert objectives. That the legislators are hinging their action on the purported delay of the budget is simply a smokescreen for a very shameful undertone that the Assembly members will not want to make open. They are yet to tell us their actual motivation for this superfluous move to shame the Governor.
“Governance has ground to a halt owing to the schism between the two arms of government, both of which are dominated by APC. From all indications and from the findings that I have conducted, the action of the lawmakers is nothing but self-serving as dictated to them by the cabal ruling the state.”

“The situation, in which we Lagosians find ourselves, calls for prayers. But more than that, the people of the state should take the practical step of voting PDP into office as the viable alternative.”