No plan to impeach C’River assembly speaker,says aide

Speaker, Cross River State House of Assembly, John Gaul Lebo, has denied that there was any plan to impeach him, dismissing the allegations as baseless.

The reports had said attempts are on to impeach the speaker, particularly on the heels of non-payment of welfare emoluments to members of the assembly and other sundry issues.

In a statement released yesterday by his Chief Press Secretary, Azogor Ideba, he said, “the speaker is not under any threat of impeachment by his colleagues.”

He said it was “however obvious from the executive session held last week that there was discontent among members over their welfare issues resulting from the non- payment of their quarterly oversight and aides’ allowances in the last one year.

“Due to the discontent, the speaker facilitated a meeting with the deputy governor and later, chairman of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, Cross River State.

The statement added that members at that meeting unanimously agreed that their concern was about the non-payment of their furniture, quarterly oversight and aides’ allowances, including the lack of official vehicles one year on.”

The chief press secretary restated that, “It was agreed that the governor would meet with the members this week to resolve the issues raised.”

Ideba further clarified that the assembly had resumed sitting and passed a bill into law and deliberated on three requests from the governor over which relevant resolutions were taken.