LAGOS MAY 13TH (URHOBOTODAY)-The removal of Hon Monday Igbuya as the Speaker of Delta State is no more news. The news is how his removal was plotted by Delta State Governor and some members of Delta State House of Assembly.
Report reaching Urhobotoday.com has alleged that Delta State Governor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa and Deputy Speaker of Delta State House of Assembly, Hon Friday Osanebi plotted the removal of the Speaker of Delta State House of Assembly, Hon Monday Igbuya.
Our check recalled that immediately Okowa won the gubernatorial election as Governor of Delta State and settled down to form government, Igbuya was not his dream choice for the position of the Speaker of the State’s House of Assembly. He had another choice.
The de-facto Speaker, Hon. Michael Diden, aka Ejele who was Okowa’s choice was instrumental in convincing Okowa to allow Igbuya hold on to the position. It was only an accident of fact that Chief James Onanefe Ibori and Dr. Ighoyota Amori supported Igbuya to emerge as the Speaker. Diden convinced Okowa that he (Ejele) would be able to put Igbuya under control hence both of them (Diden and Igbuya) were friends.
It however got into the brain of Diden that Igbuya is not a friend as he taught. This was revealed in the first storm Ejele ran into with the House of Assembly as Igbuya did not treat him (Diden) as friend . It took the intervention of Okowa to set Diden free. From that point, Diden declared Igbuya his enemy. Okowa was alleged to have reminded Diden later that he had warned him that Igbuya cannot be trusted. He (Okowa) now fashioned a way to strangulate Igbuya.
Our check alleged that in attempt to make Igbuya’s position hopeless, Okowa funds the State House of Assembly with DESOPADEC fund with Diden as the link man and storage tank, saying that any money released to DESOPADEC is wired back into Diden’s personal account to be disbursed to House of Assembly members without Igbuya’s input.
“The only money released to Igbuya is security vote which has been drastically reduced to almost nothing. This put Igbuya in a position of a lame duck Speaker. This is the reason why Igbuya could not respond when he learnt that Diden was distributing money to House members on behalf of the governor. When Diden was giving out money to House members, he told them it was his personal money he was distributing to the House members which is far from the truth,” Urhobotoday source alleged.
In plotting the final blow against Igbuya, Okowa was reported to have travelled to Lagos at 5pm on the 6th of May, 2016 and drove straight to hold a private meeting with Hon. Iredi who was officially having a function in Lagos.
“As soon as Okowa arrived, he called Hon. Friday Osanebi, Deputy Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly to join him in Lagos. Osanebi made frantic calls to his fellow House members throughout Saturday as directed by the Governor and met Okowa at 10pm at Government Lodge in Lagos where the arrangement was finalized with all the i’s dotted and all t’s crossed. Okowa warned Osanebi that the impeachment move must not be traced to him(Okowa) . After the plot, Osanebi relocated to Asaba to execute the plot,” Our source alleged.
Thereafter, a meeting was held in the house of Hon. Pat Ajudua in which 22 members of the House of Assembly signed the impeachment notice with everybody swearing to secrecy, but Hon. Tim Owhefere was reported to have leaked the plot to Igbuya.
Igbuya, on hearing of the plot to remove him quickly called a member of the House of Assembly and ordered him to go and remove the Maze. Igbuya did not know that the member was a Judas Iscariot. The member took the Maze to Hon. Friday Osanebi.
Immediately Friday Osanebi got the Maize he drove to the home of the Clerk of the House of Assembly in company of the Principal Secretary to the governor, Mr. Hilary Ibegbulem. Osanebi kidnapped the Clerk at 3am and at 6am, members invaded the Assembly for plenary from Osanebi’s house with the kidnapped Clerk. If Owhefere had not informed Igbuya of the plot, he, (Igbuya) would have come ordinarily to preside over the House as always, but the leakage of the plot by Owhefere changed the plan. Consequently, Owhefere was suspended and removed from office as Majority Leader of the House for his betrayal.
And of course, Okowa is dancing his usual dance and claiming to be innocent whereas he was the one that provided security for the honourable members to invade the House of Assemby at an unholy hour of 6am to effect the removal of the Speaker.
Urhobotoday.com learnt that Igbuya’s offence was that he had been hobnobbing with His Excellency, Chief James Ibori and always holding meetings in the former governor’s house and never disclosing the matter discussed with Okowa.