Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State on Thursday met state house of assembly members-elect, saying their victory indicated their interest to serve the state.
Mbah also lauded the political diversity of the yet to be inaugurated 8th Assembly of the Enugu State House of Assembly.
Declaring open a 2-day induction/workshop for the state Assembly members-elect, at the Nike lake resort Hotel Enugu, Governor Mbah who was represented by his deputy, Ifeanyi Ossai, congratulated the members-elect.
He said that for the past 27 years that Enugu state existed, no parliament in the state had been lucky to be richly endowed with the political diversity as your parliament, adding that his boss wants constructive partnership with the parliament.
According to him, the workshop was to equip the members-elect with the necessary tools needed to execute the constitutional assignment which they were elected to do and which the Mbah administration is an eager partner with the state legislature.
His words: “Peter Mbah offers constructive partnership with the parliament and we will do whatever is required to ensure that the partnership is sustained. We came up with the mantra of disruptive innovation and the Governor is making effort to infuse the executive arm with the intellectual energy needed so that our people will be happy at the end of the day, because there is capacity with the Governor to navigate the process and the process is to make pathway to the great Enugu, the apex development that we need to develop the state,” Ossai said.
He solicited with the in-coming legislatures to join hands with the Executive arm in its determination to further develop Enugu state.
Earlier, the Clerk of the state House of Assembly, Dr. Emma Udaya said that there was a need to improve on the achievements of the past 7th Assembly in the new 8th Assembly, which was one of the reasons for the workshop.
Udeaya also denied that there was a plot to inaugurate the new Assembly, clandestinely, stating that the House inauguration is a constitutional matter with instruments that are used in the first sitting of every House.
“Everything that will be done will be done transparently and in the chamber of the House, and so I don’t know where that rumour originated. I never held any meeting with his Excellency; he never muted anything like that. So I was surprised and shocked to hear and see such publications going everywhere.”
In the case of how the leadership of the house will emerge, Udaya said, “All things that will be done in the inauguration are contained in the set of rules called standing order, and that set of rules stipulated how to conduct the first sitting; how to elect presiding officers of the House and that standing order is an offshoot of the constitution which in section 101 provides that every state House of Assembly reserves the right to develop some set of rules to guide the affairs of the House.”
The 24 House of Assembly members-elect are comprised of 14 members elected from the Labour Party (LP) and 10 members elected under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).