NEWS, NIGERIA
BY HENRY UMORU
SENATOR Ajayi Boroffice almost had it all. After exiting the public service just about three years ago he did the unthinkable outwitting Governor Segun Mimiko’s friend, Dr. Olu Agunloye for the Labour Party’s senatorial ticket in Ondo North.
However, less than a year after he sat down in the senate and taken in by the temptation of usurping his one time mentor, Mimiko, Boroffice decamped to the LP ahead of last Saturday’s gubernatorial election in Ondo State.
Boroffice: Under fire
With the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC denying any split in the Labour Party, can the scientist turned senator salvage his office?
How Boroffice started the war
The Senate would have claimed ignorance of his defection from the LP to ACN, but he ignited it when in January, he wrote to Senate President David Mark intimating him of his resignation from the party that brought him to the senate..
In the letter dated January 10, 2012, he said his leaving LP for ACN was in line with Section 68 of the 1999 Constitution as amended and that Labour Party was factionalised.
Supporting his argument, the Senator stressed that Hon. Festus Adekunle Odidi and Barrister Olu Ogidan were leading separate factions of the party in the state and that the matter had then developed into a legal battle in respect of suit FHC/AK/CS/1/2012 before the Federal High Court, and another suit No AK/335/2011 filed before the Ondo State High Court in Akure.
He also said that the political logjam in the party was reported in the National Mirror, The Nation, Adaba FM, Sunshine Daily Watch, The Rocket Newspaper and Trace Magazine between November 2011 and January 2012. Boroffice stated that he had consulted with his people in Ondo North and that they had advised him to leave a divided party to join a party that was not factionalised.
On January 10, 2012, the Senator also wrote a similar letter to the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega.
When INEC did not respond to his first letter, Senator Boroffice wrote another one on August 23, which the electoral umpire replied through its Secretary, Abdullahi Kaugama in a letter dated September 13, 2012, saying: “The Commission has considered the grounds of your resignation from the Labour Party stated in your Notice of Resignation addressed to Distinguished Senator David Mark, GCON; Senate President dated 10th January, 2012 and all the attachments to the said Notice of Resignation.
“The Commission hereby confirms that it has no record of any division in the Labour Party to justify your resignation from the party. It further states that Section 68(1) (g) does not operate in your favour as there is no division in the Labour Party.”
LP fights back
Following the letters, members of LP fought back saying that Boroffice must vacate the seat because he was elected to the Senate on the platform of the party.
The Ondo State House of Assembly had formally petitioned the Senate on the defection of Senator Borrofice from LP to ACN and the petition sought for the removal of the lawmaker.
Boroffice’s seat on cliff-hanger in Senate
Currently, the matter is now a major challenge for the senator’s political career. If he leaves, he would be the first federal lawmaker to lose his seat on account of cross-carpeting since the return of civil rule on May 29, 1999.
The Senator’s fate currently hangs on moves by the Senate to activate the provisions of Section 68(1) (g) of the Constitution, which stops a lawmaker from defecting to another party except on grounds that division exists in his original party.
According to Section 68 (1)(g): A member of the Senate or the House of Representatives shall vacate his seat in the House if: 1(g): “being a person whose election to the House was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected; Provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or of a merger of two or more political parties or factions by one of which he was previously sponsored; or…
Armed with the provisions of the Constitution, especially Section 68(2), Senate President Mark referred the matter to the Senator Patrick Ayo Akinyelure (LP, Ondo Central) – led Senate Committee on Ethics and Privileges to investigate the case and report to the House in two weeks.
The Senate Committee held sessions between January and August and also met with Senator Boroffice.
Mild drama in Senate
Penultimate Tuesday, October 16, there was a mild drama in the Senate when the report on the Senator was to be laid for discussion.
The stand-off was between the president of the senate, Senator David Mark and Senator Olufemi Lanlehin (ACN, Oyo South) over the report.
Once Senate Leader Victor Ndoma-Egba stood up to announce the presentation of the report, Lanlehin, standing on Order 96 (4) (a) (b) of the Senate Standing Rules asked that the report on the petition should not be laid.
According to him, “to the best of my knowledge, I am not aware that a petition was presented to this Senate and the petition was referred to the Senate committee. The records would show that we didn’t receive any petition from Labour Party or the State House of Assembly.”
Responding, Mark said, “You are saying that no petition was laid before the Senate? Well, this was a petition that was written to me and I referred it to the Ethics Committee. If the Senate does not want to discuss it, I have no problem but I will act based on the report submitted to me by the committee. I have no problem with that. But they wrote a petition to me and because it affects a senator, I referred it the Ethics Committee. But if it is the wish of the Senate that we don’t want to take the report, I have no problem with it. I will act on the report that I get from the committee. Because I referred the matter to the Ethics Committee and it affects a Senator, I rule you out of order. Distinguished Senator Lanlehin, second the motion.”
Lanlehin refused and proffered more reasons. However, after a lot of exchanges, the senator seconded the motion and said he was compelled to do so.
It was at this point that Mark realised that the committee chairman, Ayo Akinyelure was yet to move the motion to lay the report. Thereafter, Akinyelure sought the leave of the Senate and formally laid the report in the chamber.
It was gathered that after the plenary that Tuesday, Lanlehin and the leadership of ACN Senate Caucus led by Minority Whip Ganiyu Solomon went to Senate President Mark and apologized for the altercation.
ACN fights for Boroffice
As crisis continued, the ACN national spokesman Alhaji Lai Mohammed intervened with an accusation against Mark of using ‘arm-twisting’ tactics to declare Boroffice’s seat vacant
Senate President Mark did not find the accusations palatable. He fired back at Mohammed through his Special Adviser, Media and Publicity, Kola Ologbonndiyan stating that he had no hand in the problem of the Ondo Senator, adding, “Senator Boroffice, who represents Ondo North in the Senate, is the architect of whatever fate befell him in the on-going imbroglio over whether he (Boroffice) could retain his seat in the Senate after decamping from Labour Party (LP), on which platform he was elected, to join the ACN or not” because the lawmaker himself wrote the INEC on his defection.
“It is wicked and mischievous for the ACN to allege that the Senate leadership has a hand in Boroffice’s fate when it was the Senator that personally took himself to INEC. Why did Distinguished Senator Boroffice write to INEC if he knew that the decision to vacate his seat or otherwise lies in the courts?” Senate President Mark asked.
With the report on Borrofice now properly laid and with the senate resuming plenary soon stakeholders would be watching whether Boroffice is living on borrowed time or not.
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