By Asare Asare, Calabar

Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State reportedly gives a sum of N30m as gift to his assembly members out of the monthly N380m security votes allocated to him monthly, sources have confided in Aljazirahnews.

This they claim is used to buy the ‘support’ of the lawmakers who are not pleased with his style of governance and policy thrust.

The payments which is reported to have started few months ago is said to be different from their statutory payments such as constituency allowances and other benefits.

However, Speaker of the Assembly, Rt Hon John Gaul Lebo vehemently denies this in a brief interaction with Aljazirahnews.

He insisted that no legislator in the state gets ‘anything extra from the state coffers apart from their due entitlements.’’

However, impeccable sources close to the assembly members said emphatically that each month the governor with this cash pacifies the law makers who have become restive for about four months ago over nonpayment of some of their financial entitlements and promises made by the state government.

Aljazirahnews gathered that the law makers are also accusing the Speaker of sidelining or blocking them from the governor creating another unique controversy on its own.

The Speaker also vehemently denied this when confronted by the reporter with the information.

“The legislators are pissed off by the state governor’s dictatorial and unilateral style of governance. They accuse him of taking very critical decisions on behalf of the state which would plunge the state into irredeemable debts in future,’’ one of the sources said.

He said that the lawmakers are particularly angry at the procedure for the implementation of the 260 km superhighway whose cost runs into several billions of dollars.

“They said that and the Bakassi Deep seaport which also would leave mountain of debts for posterity were never subjected to parliamentary debate,’’ the source added.

Findings also revealed that the law makers recently tried to move a motion to impeach the governor for his incessant jamboree trips abroad some lasting upwards of two months or more without ceding powers to his deputy as stipulated by the constitution.

Meanwhile, the Speaker has repeatedly defended the governor, who many see as his ally saying he did not need to transfer power to his deputy, Prof Ivara Esu since his regular foreign travels did not violate the country’s constitution.

It was further learnt that about ten of the law makers have planned to lobby other colleagues to impeach the Speaker himself despite his serial attempts to buy their support via cash and his cozy relationship with the Speaker.

This has generated disquiet amongst the membership of the assembly.

The Speaker had recently assured his colleagues that he would ensure that the executive hold a special session with them to iron out differences.

The medium gathered that the peace meeting has indeed held.

As promised by the Speaker, when the governor returned from his recent trip abroad, he invited all the 25 legislators to a close door meeting in which the governor promised to ‘continue giving them a certain fraction of the security allocation.’

Aljazirahnews however could not get the reaction of the state governor to these allegations as at press time.

The governor has been having a cat and mouse sort of relationship with the lawmakers in recent months over his style of leadership which has practically cut off some of their influence.


http://aljazirahnews.com/index.php/2016/10/10/gov-ayade-n30m-bribe-legislative-support-scandal/

Ayade is a goner.....His brother frank destroyed him.

Even Prof too is involved in corruption...

Useless politicians

Keneking:
Even Prof too is involved in corruption...

Useless politicians

everyone is corrupt in politics
It's the only way to get things done
What we need are good corrupters