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Sunday, November 27, 2005
Alamieyeseigha:
Nine Bayelsa Lawmakers Opt Out Of Impeachment Plot
* Allege EFCC Pressure To Remove Governor
FROM GODWIN IJEDIOGOR, KELVIN EBIRI AND WILLIE ETIM, YENAGOA
Controversy has continued to trail the moves by the Bayelsa State House of Assembly to impeach Governor DSP Alamieyeseigha as seven lawmakers accuse the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of intimidation to endorse the plot
The House, through its Speaker, Mr. Peremowei Ebebi had on Tuesday announced moves to impeach Governor
Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, with a notice to that effect, but which the governor insists he was yet to receive.
One of the lawmakers Mr. Nimbofa Ayaowei alleged that they were forced to sign an already prepared impeachment notice on Tuesday at the EFCC office on Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos where they had gone to honour an invitation by the commission for the second time in less than three months.
At a news conference in Yenagoa, the state capital yesterday, Steve Erebo, the majority leader, supported by Bright Agagaowei, Boyelfa Debekeme, immediate past/impeached Speaker, Waripomowei Dudafa, Johnson Alalibo, Nimbofa Ayaowei and Amakiri Etebu on behalf of themselves and Williams Ofoni and Amalayo Yousuo,
who is said to be hospitalised as a result of Thursday's arrest by EFCC officials, alleged they were victims of arm-twisting and meddlesomeness by the anti-corruption agency.
He said: "While some of my colleagues were on ground to welcome His Excellency back to the state and others were out of the state, to the chagrin of well-meaning Bayelsans, there was a press release, the subject of which was a notice of impeachment on Governor Alamieyeseigha".
Erebor said that the most surprising part of it was that 17 out of the 24 members of the House had allegedly signed the notice said to have been served on the governor, without such a serious matter being tabled and debated on the floor of the House, and
which is contrary to section 188, sub-section 2 of the 1999 Constitution.
Ayaowei recounted his ordeal in the hands of EFCC officials in Lagos: "What we saw when we got there was a different ball game. Honourable members were not asked any question.
"On getting there, individual members were called one after the other and what happened to other members, you wouldn't know until you were there yourself.
"When it got to my turn, immediately I got in there, I was shown an impeachment notice and asked to sign it. I told them bluntly that I was not going to sign. Then they threw me into a cell, where I met 13 members of theTaraba State House of Assembly incarcerated there."
The lawmaker added that his Taraba colleagues might still be languishing in EFCC detention even as he spoke without the knowledge of most Nigerians. He
continued: "At about 9.30 p.m. that Tuesday, they brought me, Paramowei and Ofoni out of the cell. At that time, the purported impeachment notice had been displayed on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) news that 17 members had signed.
"But on the paper, 20 members signed. Paramowei was the 18th on the list, I was the 19th and Ofoni was the 20th on the list. That was after they had gone to press. But Ebebi said in his interview that 17 members signed the notice, not the 20 on the list. We
(five of us) were forced to sign after they had gone to press.
"EFCC itself catalogued the atrocities of Alamieyeseigha to the whole world and the same EFCC connived and colluded with some persons to arrest honourable members under duress to sign the impeachment notice in their own office. That is the highest of illegality."
Ayaowei then wondered how in the face of all these, the EFCC wants Nigerians to believe that the governor actually committed the offences for which he is being prosecuted.
He added: "I had not even seen or read the allegations anywhere before that day." This, he said, only goes to show that the issue at stake goes beyond stealing of money; if at all anybody stole money.
He insisted that it is not the responsibility of the prosecuting authority like the EFCC to initiate impeachment of the suspect in their own office, adding that there is no moral justification whatsoever for such an action.
Ayaowei disclosed that he and his colleagues barely managed to get out of the EFCC office in Lagos and returned to Bayelsa subsequently, only for officials of the agency to come to the state to "harass" another member.
Meanwhile, attempts by members of the House opposed to the governor to sit yesterday was put off at the last minute, due to what they termed "the current security situation."
They were earlier scheduled to sit at 11
a.m. as a result of which security was beefed up on Thursday evening in and around the Assembly complex on Mbiama Road, Marata, Yenagoa. Policemen at the gate, who were following orders barred visitors from entering the complex. The complex itself had been very quiet since the sudden return of the governor on Monday.
Lawmakers opposed to his return, Ayaowei said, are currently holed in a hotel called Dennis Hotel in Zone 11 area of Abuja. They had earlier left Lagos where they had gone to honour the EFCC invitation.
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