The Ekiti State House of Assembly has said its priority remains delivering development to the people rather than engaging in unnecessary confrontations with the governor.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Babatunde Oke, in a statement issued in Ado Ekiti, faulted comments by an All Progressives Congress governorship aspirant, Kayode Ojo, who had described the Assembly as a rubber stamp of the executive.
Ojo’s Consultative Forum had at a press conference in Ado Ekiti alleged that the legislature was operating as an extension of the executive arm, a claim the lawmakers dismissed as unfounded and misleading.
Oke said, “We consider it an extreme display of political naivety, neophytism and callowness, for any politician to roundly brand or rate an assembly as being rubber-stamp onub account of frictionless dealings with the executive to bolster the dividends of democracy for the citizens.
“We are emphatic that the electorate across the 26 state constituencies, had a sole mission for voting us into our respective political offices, which was primarily to usher development to their doorsteps, and not to exchange fisticuffs or verbal tirades with the governor in the public for cheap political capital.”
The Assembly insisted it had demonstrated its independence through lawmaking and oversight, citing the passage of more than 30 bills in two years, periodic summons of commissioners and council chairmen, and resolutions that led to the reinstatement of previously sacked workers.