By NewsCritic Reporters
The Deputy Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly and Chairman of the Media and Publicity Committee of the house, Rt Hon Ifeanyi Uchendu has said that the Speaker Rt Hon Chinedum Orji was allegedly impeached due to gross misconduct and abuse of office.
He told a group of journalists in Umuahia after the alleged impeachment of Rt Hon Chinedum Orji that apart from the fact that the Speaker is not doing his job, as the assembly has been under lock and key without meeting the constitutionally required number of sittings in a year, he alleged that the Speaker is in the habit of embezzling funds meant for the lawmakers.
For instance, the deputy Speaker whose suspension had been announced by the Speaker along with others alleged that Rt Hon Chinedum Orji did not pay him his statutory allowances and security votes.
He said “today we did our job and the majority of the legislators decided to remove him as speaker over misconduct and abuse of office. We are 16 legislators that signed the resolution and 12 of us were in today’s sitting.
“The law is clear that the assembly ought to sit for at least 182 times in a year, but under the impeached speaker we didn’t even sit up to half of it. But when funds come he embezzles it.
“What we did today is constitutional because the law says we can sit at any government premises. We got information that hoodlums have taken over the assembly complex so we have to go where it is safe.
“The new speaker is Hon Chukwudi Apugo, we still have three weeks to the end of the 7th assembly, so changes can be made within these days by the new speaker.
“The suspension he announced is a joke, a drama because as an impeached speaker he has no power to suspend any legislator. They couldn’t even form quorum with only seven lawmakers, so whatever action they took was null and void”.
