A full-scale war was on Wednesday declared against the Speaker, House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, as a group of lawmakers issued him a seven-day ultimatum to resign or be disgraced out of office. But in a swift reaction to the ultimatum, spokesman of the House, Sunday Eseme Eyiboh, described the activities of the group as a swan song from an orchestra of perspectives, which the public must ignore.

In an unsigned statement, Eyiboh said; “The attention of the leadership of the House of Representatives has been drawn to the activities of some self-styled ‘progressives’ in the House, who misled the perceptive public with their proverbial ‘ostrich display’ of selfish tendencies in the guise of public interest.

“Their activities could best be a swan song from an orchestra, but they are advised to avail themselves with the allowances of House rules and extant provisions of the relevant statues. “The present leadership is a creature and creation of the generality of the House and the prevalent synergy culminating in the successful Constitution review vindicates the acceptability of the leadership,” he said.

Armed with a bundle of alleged ‘incriminating’ documents, Mr Dino Melaye, who addressed the Press on behalf of a group of members, accused the Speaker of corruption, tyranny and causing rifts between the House and the executive through unguided statements. Dino had earlier promised to make the House ungovernable when it resumes from a two-week recess on June 22, at a time when allegations were made that the life of the Speaker and his aides were under threat.

Bankole had been having a running battle with some lawmakers, which climaxed in an open confrontation with a member, Mr Independence Ogunewe at the lobby of the chamber before the House went on recess.
The group vowed to open a can of worms if the Speaker failed to heed the advice to quit office at the expiration of the ultimatum. Dino was accompanied to the briefing by Mr Ehioge West-Idahosa [PDP] Edo state, Bitrus Kase [PDP] Plateau, Austin Nwachukwu [PDP] Imo, Asita Honourable [PDP] Rivers, George Daika[PDP] Plateau, Anas Adamu [PDP] Jigawa, Ralph Okeke [PDP]Anambra, Darlington Okereke [PDP] Ebonyi state, Solomon Ahwinahwi [PDP] Delta and Ogunewe, [PDP] Imo.

Chronicling the ‘sins’ of Bankole, Dino said that as progressives in the House, the call on the Speaker to resign honourably was to restore the dignity of the lower Chamber of the National Assembly. “Our call is a clarion call to right the wrongs of legislative businesses and condemn the bad leadership in the House of Representatives and the negative image.

“We are here this afternoon to unequivocally say without fear or favour, that the House of Representatives you read about in 1999, the House of Representatives that West-Idahosa was a member of the House in 2000; the House of Representatives with its sterling qualities exhibited during Na’Abba; the House of Representatives that was labouriously built by Masari is not the same with what we have today,” Dino said.

He stated that the House used to be pacesetters of legislative practice in the country, but had been overtaken because of ineptitude of leadership, adding that not only that public perception had declined, the House, according to the group, had lost its positive reputation. “ We hereby, in strong terms call on Bankole to resign immediately as the Speaker of the House of Representatives within seven days. We are asking him to resign for the following reasons: Corruption in leadership; because of his leadership style, which today is responsible for the rift, disagreement and disharmony between the two brothers in the National Assembly, the Senate and the Representatives. The relationship between the two chambers has never been this bad.

“ We are also asking him to resign because of his highhandedness, disrespect for members; frequent breach of the rules of the House, his sweeping and unsubstantiated comments capable of causing disaffection among the various arms of government. “For example, when the Speaker openly accused civil servants of gross corruption, and the then Head of Service, Amma Pepple wrote an official letter to the Speaker and challenged him to substantiate his claims, and the Speaker till date is yet to respond.

“ This is bringing the reputation, the integrity and the name of the House into disrepute.
“And I want to say that, failure to comply with our call in the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians, especially the masses of this country, this group has overwhelming evidence, information and they are incriminating records that we will publish and give to you, the media, and assure you in seven days.”

Dino assured that the group would send the documents to appropriate agencies of government such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the National Security Adviser (NSA), the State Security Services (SSS) and the political head office of the Speaker’s party.

“This is no child’s play. We have resolved to clean our House. We have resolved and are determined that he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. And we have resolved that the evidence will be given to each of you.
“And we are ready to defend it anywhere and anytime. This is not a secret presentation. We are very, very sure of facts that these documents are incontrovertible and we know that in the normal leadership style of Bankole, they will tell you that these documents are fake. Our challenge is that by the time we present them to you, after our ultimatum, we will tell them that anything that has fake, must have original.

Shedding more light on the fight against the Speaker, West-Idahosa, who was part of the team that wrote the House Rules in 1999, described the reign of Bankole as a misfortune. “We have never had it so bad. We have never had such a legislative tyranny as we do have now. We have never in this House turned our Privileges Committee into a hunting machine of fellow members.

“Do not be surprised that as soon as we brief you, we may be earmarked to face that committee over one allegation or the other. But, let me tell you, we will rather die than to lose our courage to speak the word of truth to those who trample on the indignity and becoming very ruthless in the face of truth. “I believe democracy had been trampled upon and I can assure you that many members have been castrated. They can no longer air their views, but we shall break that spell today by this decision to call a spade a spade and to take this struggle to the next level.

“We were glad that the EFCC has sent the report of the N2.3 billion car scam to their legal department, although we quarrel with the delay. We realise that they concluded that investigation a year ago. We crave the leadership of the EFCC to quicken action on it. Because Nigerians are waiting for justice, we knew it long time ago that although the leadership was indicted, but for many reasons, the EFCC was sleeping on duty. But now that they have woken up, we were to welcome them.

“We have set the machinery in motion to ask for an order of mandamus to compel them to do a public duty because it is no use fighting the war on corruption on the pages of newspapers. There can be no better place of corruption than what happened in the N2.3 billion scam. If I may ask, what did Etteh do? “She tried to get anticipatory approval to make an expenditure which was quarrelled with, and described as “anti-morality” and we forced her to throw in the towel,” he concluded.

House spokesman, Eyiboh had in his statementwarned the public not to be deceived as most of these persons lost out of the recent committee reshuffling or were turned down on their blackmail to get ‘juicy’ committees from the leadership were behind the call on the Speaker to resign. “Those ‘progressives’ should vacate their theatre or be absolved and come join other discernible members to complement the current legislative engagements for executive action.

“The call for the resignation of the House leadership is part of the orchestrated plot by these ‘progressives’ to make the House ungovernable as threatened by the arrowhead of the group. “Once more, I wish to alert the relevant security agencies to this destabilisation plot of an arm of the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“We want to state that the various allegations being parroted are false with some of them based on forgery of government documents. This is another area we believe the security agencies should investigate in the interest of the nation,” the Chairman, House Committee on Media and Publicity said.

interesting this Mr Dino Melaye guy seems to be very vocal.the other day he was condemning the over inflated contract for the construction of a new landing abuja tarmac.

^ yeah Dino has always been a vocal activist even from his under graduate days in the SUG.

Looking at the ethnic composition of the group it's obvious they haven't been able to pull some sections of the house in their direction . Let's watch the drama unfold.

yes oh we are waching god we see true in there hand

OOh my
I loved dimeji bankole
such a fine young man~

reminds me of me

Bankole should go and kiss President Jonathan's "ring", else he may not survive the plot. Remember the role he played while Yar'Adua saga lasted. Ogbulafor has gone, he may well be the next

yada yada

Re: quit notice Reps Give Bankole 7 Days To Resign
« #5 on: Today at 12:12:42 PM »

Bankole should go and kiss President Jonathan's "ring", else he may not survive the plot. Remember the role he played while Yar'Adua saga lasted. Ogbulafor has gone, he may well be the next

i support 4 that coment yes he should so now before it will be 2 late.

DINO, DINO, DINO!!!! Y R U ALWAYS IN FRONT? WHEN DID YOU ABD BANKOLE FIGHT? ABI YOU DEY JEALOUS HIS "AJE-BUTTER" STATUS

EVANS4GOD:



Bankole should go and kiss President Jonathan's "ring", else he may not survive the plot. Remember the role he played while Yar'Adua saga lasted. Ogbulafor has gone, he may well be the next

i support 4 that coment yes he should so now before it will be 2 late.

Just take a look at that! More like the same sentimental comments I find on Nairaland everyday.


Why can't we call CORRUPTION CORRUPTION. Ribadu, Bankole, Jonathan, Fashola, Ibori may not be different before the EYES of the Law.

Small rogues, BIG rogues


All Na thief o!

Pls make Nigeria progress and quit this reactionary exuberance!

Thank God naija is changing

Bankole was a big disappointment to Nigerian youths.
He should leave the office.he never stood for justice and
Truth. He followed the footsteps of his Nigerian fathers in
Government. He could not break with tradition.

Guys don't always believe what this so called Hon. or what ever they call themselves always say. Why now? Are they just knowing this? Simply because there is some kind of misunderstanding amongst them which could involve huge money settlement or positions in the house, they are now letting Nigerians know how bad Demeji Bankole is and the need to impeach him. Remember the case of Obasanjo vs Atiku, if not for the misunderstanding between them will Atiku expose Obj and his plans over third term. They are all corrupt. Think Guys, Think.

OOh my
I loved dimeji bankole
such a fine young man~

reminds me of me

emmatony:

Thank God naija is changing

Changing? how?

Dont believe all that you read and see. To me they are all same of the same

Remember 2011 is around the corner.

kibra4u:

Guys don't always believe what this so called Hon. or what ever they call themselves always say. Why now? Are they just knowing this? Simply because there is some kind of misunderstanding amongst them which could involve huge money settlement or positions in the house, they are now letting Nigerians know how bad Demeji Bankole is and the need to impeach him. Remember the case of Obasanjo vs Atiku, if not for the misunderstanding between them will Atiku expose Obj and his plans over third term. They are all corrupt. Think Guys, Think.

So what will you recommend we do?
who cares if there is a misunderstanding amongst them or not?---- all the better for us!

Isn't it better that all parties concerned have a really big fight and all sorts of looting that had been swept under the carpet become exposed to the public?

Are we now to ignore the facts that Bankole did all those things he was alleged to have done, simply because in your own words "there is some kind of misunderstanding amongst them" and they have chosen to let the cat out of the bag?---isn't it high time we saw the cat itself?

they are all corrupt, yes, but in my books, its all the better for us if they washed their dirty linens in the Public and we all know the real thieves who have been having an eden-moment with taxpayers money!

High time they got rid of that arrogant, uncharismatic, spoilt brat posturing as Speaker. I've watched several live telecasts of the House of Reps' sessions and, in my opinion, Bankole's leadership has been a disaster. You need to see his body language, irreverent choice of words, abrasive brashness, haughty denunciation, magisterial vain-glory, and delusion of grandeur whenever he addresses/relates with fellow 'honourables'. He once threatened a colleague that he would order "security to throw you out of this chamber"! Can you imagine that? Now, if you contrast that with the graceful elegance and dignified deportment with which David Mark presides over the Senate, you would understand why the latter has held court for an entire term without controversy, and why Bankole is destined to bite the dust very soon.

.

why is der always unrest in the Lower House?
baffles me alot!

bankole is a rip off and a big disgrace to nigerian youths,
i thought we will be building a generation of honest true,young people,but he is frolicking with corrupt people

what you have is a mere tissue paper - Bankole

This type of news hardly excites me, because its all blackmail, like Jesus told the people "he who is without sin cast the first stone".
be that as it may Bankoles time appears to be up, or was it not the same corrupt act that got Etteh out and let him in, if we now compare the magnitude of Ettehs crime to Bankole, she shld come out almost a saint and Dino still does not mean well for Nigerians bicos when some of the worms he wants to expose now were originally being probed he was in the forefront of passing a vote of confidence on the thief.


As someone asked what wld we want them to do, what I wld want is for the Efcc to arrest, detain and prosecute all the members in the house! for God sake we can do without them, Honourable Thieves!!!

marvix:

Honourable Thieves!!!

For sure

I guess some Reps cash is going down and needed to restock, Now Dimeji will give them some milk to suck and all will talk no more, Nigerian dirty political game.

bankole is a rip off and a big disgrace to nigerian youths,
i thought we will be building a generation of honest true,young people,but he is frolicking with corrupt people

I guess afterall IBB was on point.

A politician and a thief share the same parents.
The sooner we all understand this fact the quicker Nija politics will become clearer to all of us. This is why I think IBB is still the best candidate for the 2011 presidential election. He's been there before, he knows what is wrong, he knows exactly what to do to fix it and he has too much that will go against him if things are not done correctly thistime around.

Thinking that new generations is the perfect group to rescue this nation at this time is very senseless. The new generations are worse than the old ones. They are ready to suck this injured country to the bone.
Mark it down, we will continue to see more of Bankole Oladimeji, Ibori, Kalu etc. for many year if we continue to think this way.

whoever thinks Hon. Dino Melaye is fighting corruption should have a rethink, is he not the same man that said on live tv in the house that he never said, i repeat Dino Melaye said the reports carried on the sun newspaper when he visited the chairman of EFCC that the legislature is corrupt was false? That he never said that? now he's brandishing a voluminous document containing the sins of Bankole. If he truelly feels that the speaker is corrupt why not release the document and lets see if the speaker will not resign, instead of blackmailing the speaker into resigning with a document.

nearest:

whoever thinks Hon. Dino Melaye is fighting corruption should have a rethink, is he not the same man that said on live tv in the house that he never said, i repeat Dino Melaye said the reports carried on the sun newspaper when he visited the chairman of EFCC that the legislature is corrupt was false? That he never said that? now he's brandishing a voluminous document containing the sins of Bankole. If he truelly feels that the speaker is corrupt why not release the document and lets see if the speaker will not resign, instead of blackmailing the speaker into resigning with a document.

GBAM, Melaye himself is as guilty as Bankole, it is his duty to release the document and challenge the speaker to the so called allegations rather than resort to just blackmail, even Bankole has a right to defend himself

Like Etteh like bankole. What was good for Etteh should be good for Bankole.