The Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly, Hon. Gboyega Aribisogan, has been impeached.
Aribisogan on Monday, November 21, 2022, was removed from his seat after barely six days in office.
He was impeached and suspended indefinitely by seventeen lawmakers, for blocking the passage of the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Bill.
Aribisogan was immediately replaced by the Assembly Chief Whip, Rt. Hon. Olubunmi Adelugba from Emure Constituency, who was unanimously elected new Speaker by all the 17 lawmakers present at a plenary presided over by the Deputy Speaker, Rt. Hon. Hakeem Jamiu.
The oath of office and the oath of allegiance was subsequently administered on Mrs. Adelugba, who became the first female Speaker in the history of the Assembly, since return to democracy in 1999.
The Assembly Complex had been sealed as members were embroiled in a controversy following the death of the former speaker, Funminiyi Afuye.
66-year-old Afuye died at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital on October 19 after suffering cardiac arrest.
A month after his demise, the parliament held an election, and Aribisogan, who is the representative of Ikole 1 Constituency in the Assembly and a two-term lawmaker, emerged.
Aribisogan, on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, had accused the immediate past Governor of the state, Kayode Fayemi of working with members of the state legislature to impeach him.
“The majority of members of Assembly voted for me but few of them who felt perhaps I did not follow the directive of the former governor, Dr Fayemi, thought that they would make the state ungovernable for even the administration,” Aribisogan said last night.
“I didn’t have any quarrel with him (Fayemi). I sent a message to him even last night asking, ‘What is happening? Am I no longer one of your loyalists? Why did you not congratulate me?’
“Up till now that I’m speaking with you, he has not done anything. Otherwise, he has been going around calling our members to go and impeach me tomorrow. That is the truth.”
