A chairmanship aspirant for the Abia State branch of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), James Kwubiri Okpara, has called on the Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly, Emmanuel Emereuwa, to immediately swear in an elected PDP member of the House or be removed from office.
A member of the PDP, Aaron Uzodike, was declared winner of the Aba North State constituency in the last election by the Appeal Court sitting in Owerri, but was yet to be sworn in by the Speaker of the House.
In a statement by his media team, Okpara said: “The unlawful and unjustified refusal of the Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly to swear in Aaron Uzodike, the duly elected member representing Aba North State Constituency, is mind boggling and befuddling.
“Uzodike went through the whole process of litigation after election, and finally, the Court of Appeal, which is the apex court in election matters for the state house of assembly, declared him the winner and INEC gave him the Certificate of Return. In any decent and lawful society, the next action would have been his swearing in.”
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Okpara regretted that for the past seven months, the speaker has bluntly refused to do his job by swearing in Uzodike as the duly elected member of the Abia State House of Assembly for Aba North State Constituency.
“There is no litigation, lawful or constitutional impediment, stopping the swearing in of Uzodike by the Speaker. What the Speaker is doing in refusing to swear in Uzodike is brazen lawlessness, gross dereliction of his duties and unbridled arrogance,” he said.
Expressing further his annoyance over the development, the PDP chairmanship aspirant said: “The contempt that the speaker has for all norms of decency and legislative behaviour is unparalleled in the comity of states. The speaker, by his actions, has denied the people of Aba North State Constituency representation in the Abia State House of Assembly, which is their undeniable constitutional right.”
Okpara described Emeruwa’s actions in refusing to swear in Uzodike as part of the despotic, authoritarian and undemocratic governance that Labour Party (LP) has inflicted on Abia State, and stated that enough was enough.
“This is the same modus of lawlessness, disdain and contempt for due process, fairness and parliamentary rules and procedure that LP, which is one of the minority parties in Abia House of Assembly, manufactured the Speaker and other principal members of the Abia State House of Assembly, despite the fact that PDP is the majority party in the state assembly.
“There was nothing democratic about how Emeruwa became the speaker of Abia House of Assembly, and since then, he has been entangled in a leadership crisis that is clear to those who imposed and forced him on the members of the Assembly.”
Okpara said it was in the same vein that the duly accredited journalists to the Assembly were ordered out of a press conference by the speaker without any reason or explanation.
“The reason for this draconian and autocratic action cannot be divorced from the fact that the said journalists and their employer have been engaging in fair and objective comments, and questioning both the executive and legislative arms of the LP and Abia State Government.
Okpara, while maintaining that Emereuwa must swear in Uzodike or be removed from office, accused the LP of being an undemocratic party and a personality cult.
