Olugboyega Aribisogan, the ousted Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, has petitioned Usman Baba, the Inspector-General of Police, alleging a security threat to him and his family, as well as to Messrs. Tajudeen Akingbolu and Olajide Adegoke, two of his associates.
Since some weird guys were seen near his home and workplace, Aribisogan claimed to have moved his family and gone underground.
On November 21, 2022, Aribisogan was deposed as Speaker, and the Assembly immediately placed Akingbolu, Adegoke, and several other supporters under indefinite suspension.
Aribisogan, in a petition to the IGP, dated December 7, 2022, and titled ‘Save My Soul: Appeal for Police Protection,’ insisted that his impeachment was illegal.
The petition read partly, “I hereby appeal to the Inspector-General to save me and my family members from being eliminated because I decided to contest for election as the Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly.
On November 15, 2022, 25 members of the House of Assembly participated in a free, fair, and transparent election of a new Speaker to fill the vacancy, which occurred due to the death of the late Speaker of the House, Funminiyi Afuye.
“I must mention that for some days before the election, some powerful forces outside the government of Ekiti State had been coercing members of the House to support Adelugba for the Speakership.
“My emergence as the Speaker thus did not go down well with those people, and they used their influence to get heavily armed policemen to be drafted to seal off the House of Assembly Complex in the early hours of the following day (Wednesday, November 16, 2022), after I was elected Speaker.
“On enquiry, the State Commissioner of Police told me that he deployed his men to secure the complex based on an alleged intelligence report that some disgruntled elements had planted a bomb on the premises. The Police Commissioner said that I should inform the honourable members and staff of the Assembly to vacate the premises for a few hours while he searched the premises.”
He continued by saying that on November 20, 2022, he learned that people who were unhappy with his election as Speaker of the House had threatened to deal with a few MPs if they did not accompany them to an all-night meeting that day.
On November 21, 2022, at 6 am, the members—who had camped out outside of Ado-Ekiti overnight—were taken to the House of Assembly.
“The members claimed that they had a plenary meeting, during which I was purportedly impeached as Speaker and suspended from the House along with six other colleagues,” he added.
The ex-Speaker said immediately after he announced his decision to go to court on November 17, “three unknown men visited my private office and my residence to make enquiries about my whereabouts.”
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