ODHA resumes legislative activities today

By Adekola Afolabi
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The Ondo State House of Assembly is now set for the last leg of its legislative activities as the Assembly reconvenes today.

The House had gone on break to enable members fully participate in the electioneering campaigns of their different political parties in the just concluded Presidential and National Assembly elections as well as the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly polls.

It would be recalled that sizeable number of the lawmakers also contested in the polls to return to the hallowed chambers for another term.

The break gave them the opportunity to campaign for their parties and particularly sell themselves to the electorate across their various constituencies.

At the end of the elections, eight out of nine members of the APC who got the party’s return tickets were returned, while one of them lost his re-election bid to return to the 9th Assembly.

Sadly enough, none of the incumbent opposition PDP lawmakers made it to the 9th Assembly. But in all, APC got 23 seats in the Assembly poll while PDP and ZLP won two and one seats respectively.

At the last plenary sitting, the House adjourned till March 15 which was last week Friday. However, the House does not usually sit on Fridays and Mondays except on a very rare occasion.

The lawmakers use those two days for parliamentary meetings while the rest of the days in the week are purely for plenary sittings.

Speaking with The Hope yesterday, the Speaker of the Assembly, Bamidele Oleyelogun confirmed that the House would reconvene with normal legislative business starting from today (Monday).

Oleyelogun noted that the lawmakers had formally resumed last week Friday, but normal legislative activities would resume fully this week.

He explained that though the House was on break before now, as the Speaker of the Assembly he has always been working and treating files to ensure that the whole Assembly runs smoothly even without plenary.

Oleyelogun said the House is committed to quality service to the people of the state.

Investigation by The Hope, however, revealed that most of the members of the 8th Assembly, especially those who were not given return tickets, were not favourably disposed to serious legislative activities as majority of them are now busy planning for life after the 8th Assembly.

Some bills which are still pending before the House may not be passed by the current 8th Assembly before it winds up in May, investigation revealed.

The 9th Assembly is expected to be inaugurated on June 1, 2019.