The Rt. Hon. Acho Ihim led 8th Assembly of Imo State Law Chambers is standing on a keg of gun powder, ready to explode if caution is not taken, sources revealed.
The war of words which ensued in the executive session of the House was said not to be unconnected with alleged arbitrary deductions made by the Hon. Speaker and other Principal Officers of the House from the N19m ICT and Recreation Park projects approved by the Executive Governor of the State, Owelle Rochas Okorocha for each of the 27 local government areas of the state.
The source said that installment funding of N6m was made to each Law Maker to kick-start the projects, out of which the speaker and his cohorts deducted N900,000 from each LGA mobilization fee.
It was gathered that the speaker hoodwinked the Hon. Members by saying that the governor of the state directed that a supervisory consultant should be engaged, and it was to foot the bill of the consultancy that the said deduction was made. This reason or excuse it was uncovered, was refuted by the principal secretary to the government.
This ugly development did not go down well with majority of the Hon. Members who questioned the authority of the Speaker in making such a deduction for a ghost consultant.
Our source said that the speaker has been sitting on the welfare of the Hon. Members, adding that they have been denied their entitlements including cars, Legislative Training, Land allocation and more.
The Hon. Members swore to make the speaker vomit the said deductions and give them free hands to operate and give their constituencies the dividends of democracy which is the in-thing of their being elected as honourable members. Many of the Hon. Members, our source gathered, have been unable to implement any constituency project owing to financial strangulation allocated by the speaker’s high handedness, who they accused of garnering wealth to push him through his Guber ambition in 2019.
Our source further noted that this recent development will be the last straw that will break the camel’s back if the Hon. Speaker goes ahead to give stiff neck to the agitation that he should allow the sleeping dog to lie, by refunding the money which was said to have shared amongst some few members of the House who were not duly informed on the source of the gratification.
Nigeria Newspoint
