The Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly, Mr Blessing Agbebaku has distanced the Assembly from the purported impeachment of Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu.
He said this on Friday during a meeting with Governor Godwin Obaseki at the Government House, insisting that the governor had never raised the issue with the house.
Agbebaku added that the assembly had never contemplated removing the deputy governor at any point.
“Today, I want the Edo people know that there was nothing of such. I am the presiding officer of the house of assembly; I control the gavel. The gavel is like the AK-47 of the house,” Agbebaku said.
“There was no time that the governor has called me to inundate me to say, ‘There must be an impeachment against the deputy governor.’”
Describing the allegation as a “rumour from the pit of hell”, Agbebaku revealed that he took the matter to Obaseki.
“When I approached the governor, he told me, ‘What is the impeachment for?’ What has the deputy governor done that he wants to impeach him? There is nothing like that,” he said.
“On my own, I also called the deputy governor to say, ‘These are rumours. Please, disassociate yourself from this kind of rumour. The governor has no such plan.”
The governor, for his part, said the impeachment saga is the least of his concerns at the moment, maintaining that there are pressing issues to deal with in the state.