By Osagie Igbinidu

WHEN Hon. Elizabeth Ativie led some other members of the Edo State House of Assembly to impeach the House Leadership under the former Speaker, Hon. Victor Edoror on May 4, 2016 and thereafter became the speaker, she made this remarkable statement while addressing the press: “We were all first elected by our constituents before electing him (Edoror) to become speaker. He changed the overheads of the House to suit his ways, thus ensuring that his colleagues were not properly catered for. You journalists can observe that lawmakers in Edo Assembly were now living like paupers”.

Hon. Ativie’s reign as Speaker was short lived. Within four months in the saddle, she was compelled by the then Governor Adams Oshiomhole, to step down to the position of Deputy Speaker, from which Hon. Bright Osayande, representing Edo South, had been sacrificed. This was to allow Hon. Justin Okonoboh from Edo Central Senatorial District to replace the impeached Victor Edoror who had represented the senatorial district in a power balancing arrangement.

Although she conceded, Ativie who had not only envisioned but also tasted the comfort of leadership, would not relinquish the position without bargaining to hold on to the official possessions which included the cars due the speaker. That included a 2016 model Lexus Jeep which is presently the object of a controversy.

Reminiscent of the Ativie legislative putsch of May 4, 2016, on August 14, 2017, Hon. Kabiru Adjoto, representing Akoko Edo 11, led other members to impeach the Hon. Justin Okonoboh leadership which included Hon. Ativie as Deputy Speaker and Foly Ogedengbe the Majority Leader. And what did the new speaker Kabiru Adjoto have to say about the ousted leadership? Impunity and corruption – the regular refrain.

While the impeached Speaker, Okonoboh’s response did not depart from the ordinary and thus did not make any headline, Ativie’s response, highlighted a greedy disposition and desperation for the spoils of office. Reacting to the request for her to return the official vehicles in her possession, Hon. Ativie wrote to the clerk that the official vehicles in her possession had become her personal property because according to her, the former Governor, Adams Oshiomhole had willed them to her as reward for sacrificing the position of speaker in 2016. She then disclosed the incredulous, that she had sold off the Lexus Jeep which she had held on to while stepping down as speaker.

Meanwhile, prior to their impeachment, the House members had launched an investigation into the use of finances of the House by the leadership. Significantly, the speaker had been confronted to give account of how the N22 million approved by Governor Godwin Obaseki for the provision of public address system for the chambers and the repair of the generating set for the Assembly Complex was used because in spite of the money, the generator had remained in a state of disrepair and the public address system remained substandard. Neither the speaker nor the deputy, who is  the Chairman Due Process, could give any convincing answer as to how the contract for the projects was executed.

Besides Justin Okonoboh and Elizabeth Ativie, the former Majority Leader, Hon. Foly Ogedengbe is also being made to suffer. The manifestation of this is that apart from losing his position as majority leader, he has been ordered by the new House leadership to relocate his wife’s catering and rental business which had not only constituted nuisance but had violated the sanctity of the Legislators’ Quarters. Hon. Ogedengbe and his wife had before the impeachment, reportedly turned their legislators’ quarter residence and the spaces nearby to a rental and catering services business offices, in violation of the rules governing the habitation of the premises.

In conclusion one would say that as a new chapter opens in the fragile leadership saga of the Edo State House of Assembly, there is an apparent similarity between the impeached Okonoboh/Ativie Speakership and the revolt of the animals against their human handler in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Like the Pigs who had led the other animals in self-serving revolt, on the dubious mantra of the equality of all, but only to turn out more human than the humans, Hon. Ativie who led the former coup, had classically demonstrated that what drives the passion of many a Nigerian politician in the clamour for leadership is the appetite to cater for self first and perhaps only self. And it is self evident that with Ativie in leadership she had succeeded in her ambition to get out of the class of “pauper lawmakers”.

*Mr. Igbinidu, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Benin City, Edo State.