Ekiti Guber Polls: APC Dares Bamidele To Resign From NASS, Party

Opeyemi BamideleThe All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has dared a gubernatorial hopeful and member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Michael Opeyemi Bamidele to resign both his membership of the party as well as his electoral mandate if he no longer wishes to identify with the party.

Bamidele, who represents Ado-Ekiti/Irepodun/Ifelodun Federal Constituency in the House of Reps, had on Tuesday resigned his position as leader of the Ekiti Caucus in the Green Chamber of the National Assembly.

The lawmaker, in a letter which he addressed to both the leadership of the House and Governor Kayode Fayemi, said his decision to resign was hinged on his ambition to contest the 2014 governorship election of Ekiti State.

But barely 48 hours after his resignation, interim chairman of the Ekiti State chapter of APC, Chief Jide Awe while speaking with journalists in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital yesterday, said it was not enough for the lawmaker to resign his chairmanship of the APC caucus in the House but that he should quit the National Assembly and resign from the party that sponsored him to the House.

Awe said: “First of all, it is rather too late because when a representative decides to be operating outside his constituency, I think the best thing for such representative is to even vacate his own seat.”

Besides, Awe noted that the party was yet to receive Bamidele’s resignation letter, saying the he should have directed the letter to the party instead of Gov. Fayemi.

“A representative must be responsible and responsive to his constituency. But when a representative becomes irresponsible to his constituency and to his party, the honourable thing for such a person to do is to quit.

“Bamidele has not taken the final stride, which we still expect him to take. Resigning from the caucus leadership is not the final plunge, so that he can be free. He should resign completely from the National Assembly, what he did is a direct affront.

“We have not seen his letter of resignation. He now realises that he cannot be the leader of the APC from Ekiti in the National Assembly and still move about boot-leaking.

“You cannot carry our banner and still go into another party and work against us but if he is still operating within our party, there is no crime,” Awe maintained.

-The Guardian

 

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