By Gabriel Enogholase

BENIN—AN Esan socio-cultural group, Esan Youth Movement, has faulted the removal of Mr. Justin Okonoboh as the Speaker of Edo State House of Assembly, describing the impeachment as unacceptable, unceremonious, acrimonious and unjust, noting that it negates the principle of federal character, equity and fairness.

Okonoboh, Edo Speaker

In a statement in Benin yesterday, the Edo State capital, Esan Youth Movement’s President, Mr. Kingsley Ohens, insisted that the inclusion of the principle of federal character in the Constitution was to ensure equitable participation and just representation in the workings of governance.

He said: “The full import of the unceremonious and acrimonious removal of Dr. Justine Okonoboh as the Speaker of Edo State House of Assembly is that the people of Edo Central senatorial district have been completely and unjustly shut out of the topmost leadership positions across the three arms of government in the state— executive, legislature and judiciary.”

Noting that all top officials of the state government and indigenes of the state occupying federal positions were either of Edo South or North extraction, the umbrella body of all Esan youths said it was not comfortable with what it called a lopsided arrangement.

The youths called Governor Godwin Obaseki and the leadership of All Progressives Congress, APC, to prevail on the members of the House to elect one of the other five lawmakers from Edo Central district as the new Speaker.