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Omoniyi Salaudeen
The threat of impeachment of the Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, by the state legislature is looming larger by the day. The lawmakers have accused the governor of making expenditure from the 2019 budget without presenting it to the assembly. At the plenary on Monday, the aggrieved lawmakers gave the governor a week ultimatum to explain his action, threatening to commence impeachment proceedings if he fails to do so.
The resolution followed the report of a committee headed by the Deputy Speaker, Sanni Eshinlokun, set up to probe the various allegations bordering on financial misappropriation against the governor. While submitting the report of the panel, the deputy speaker said his panel found Ambode and his deputy, Dr. Idiat Adebule, guilty of the allegations levelled against them and, as such, should either resign or be impeached.
In this fresh move, it appears that the lawmakers are more determined to finish the unfinished task they had abandoned in the wake of direct governorship primary that threw up the former managing director of Lagos State Property Development Corporation, Jide Sanwo-Olu, as the standard bearer of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state against the ambition of the incumbent governor to go for a second term.
Prior to his expression of interest and collection of nomination form, a caucus of the state assembly had reportedly met and warned Ambode against seeking re-election, saying they would commence impeachment proceedings should he go ahead with his plan to seek for a second term. Determined to test his popularity, Ambode defied the lawmakers and went ahead to pick the form to re-contest for the office of the governor in the 2019 polls.
In the end, the embattled governor, a political neophyte, who was literally left in the lurch by his supposed allies at the very last minute of the contest, took his defeat in good stride and pledged his continued loyalty to the party. Even at that, rumours have been making the round of an alleged plot by the lawmakers to still impeach the governor. This was a time when controversy arose over the introduction of the Visionscape Sanitation Solutions against the established PSP arrangement and consequential environmental challenges that turned the streets of Lagos to a huge refuse dumpsite. The state assembly, while disowning Visionscape, insisted that the State Government must return all the money it had paid to Visionscape, noting that the heap of refuse on the streets showed that it lacked the capacity to cope with refuse disposal. Accordingly, it directed the 20 Local Government Councils and 37 Development Centres to engage the PSP operators to take over refuse clearing in the state from the Visionscape.
The Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Hon Mudasiru Obasa, had though dismissed the swirling rumour of impeachment, but he could not hide the possibility of it happening in the near future. He said: “If there would be an impeachment, it would be from the governor and if there would not be any need for impeachment, it would be from him, based on his actions.
“Impeachment is constitutional. So many speakers, Senate Presidents, Presidents and others have been impeached all over the world.
“So, nobody can threaten us if it happens because we are representatives of the people.
“We don’t need the wailers to guide us in performing our duties. It is not out of place for us to do our job,” Obasa said.
All these shenanigans could be linked to the unresolved issues Ambode has with his estranged godfather, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Different versions of stories have been told of his alleged offences that hurt the state establishment and thus made the change inevitable.
A member of the Lagos State Governor’s Advisory Council (GAC), Senator Anthony Adefuye, blamed Ambode’s travails on his refusal to heed the advice of party leaders, who could have intervened to nip the crisis in the bud. Giving a vivid account of what transpired in the wake of the power game at a reconciliation meeting held at CMD Shangisha, Lagos, after the primary, Adefuye said: “People accused us of removing Governor Akinwunmi Ambode. We saw this crack four months ago and we decided to meet with our Lagos Central Senatorial Leader, Alhaji Tajudeen Olusi and we went to see Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
“We asked Tinubu if there was any problem, and he said that there was a problem and he narrated it.
“We prostrated and asked him to call Ambode and speak with him.
“We left the place and started calling Ambode to give him a hint of the meeting, but he did not pick our calls. Asiwaju Tinubu said that he was not picking his calls too. I actually tried my best.
“We rose up to defend Ambode. We didn’t just follow Asiwaju like sheep, we fought and we tried.
“Those of us in the East nearly burst into tears for the opportunity we lost in Lagos East.
“I fought tooth and nail to make sure that the position was not taken away from us. It was a great opportunity that we lost.
“Anyone that is not a party man should not be elected into positions. Take this advice and make sure you don’t make the same mistake.”
Now, the lawmakers are back in the trenches. They want to finish the unfinished assignment. And they have the number. If they go ahead and successfully carry out impeachment proceedings against the governor and his Deputy, Obasa may likely emerge as governor to complete the tenure of the present administration. But the question on the lips of many Lagosians is: What else do they want from a man that is already down? That the move is coming some days to the election also suggests that there is more to it than meet the eye. Perhaps, his greatest undoing is his inability to quickly master the political terrain laid with the proverbial banana peels.
Akinwunmi Ambode was born on June 14, 1963 in Epe, Lagos, into the family of Festus Akinwale Ambode. After his secondary school education at Federal Government College, Warri, Delta State, he obtained a BSC and master’s degree in accounting from the University of Lagos and later qualified as a Chartered Accountant. He had served for 27 years in Lagos public service before he got elected as governor in 2015 on the platform of the APC.
