By Ayo Kehinde
Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of Ondo state has accused the lawmakers of concocting the snake scare story to tarnish the image of the government.
The governor who paid a visit to the House of Assembly yesterday to verify things for himself said the story that snake fell from the roof into the floor of the Assembly during plenary, forcing the lawmakers to scamper for safety, has embarrassed the government to no end since it went viral on social media.
“Did you see snake here”, a furious Akeredolu asked, pointing from the ceiling to a table full of rubbish that fell from the exposed portion of the ceiling. And all the lawmakers who formed a circle around him chorused “No” and he went further, “then how did you combine what happened here and the story that is all over the media if it is not a a grand connivance by yourselves…” and the lawmakers again, interrupted him with a prolonged “Noooooo”
He explained that the 26- year old House of Assembly has not been maintained regularly by the lawmakers and termites had simply made a good work of the ceiling until it caved in on that faithful day.
“This is an arm of government and the votes they are entitled to, the government would always give them. What is clear is that this place is termite infested and the termites have been dwelling here for many years. So something is wrong , this place has not been maintained. And members of the House has always been here, what have they done about maintenance of the place. If they have not done so, then we have to seat down and work things out,” he said.
Speaking with journalists shortly afterwards, Governor Akeredolu said what he came to do was to verify what happened.
“And what I have seen here is that there is an attempt to blackmail the state and the government would not take it. That is all, because I was given the facts and I wanted to know what the Speaker and the principal officers have to say and they have told us that no snake fell here. They were also not sitting when the ceiling came down. They only came to meet the ceiling as it had caved in. So all the pictures in the story as reported, that python or snake fell into the House and members ran away, are fake.”
In his reaction Speaker of the House of Assembly, Hon. Bamidele Oloyelogun, said, “Since this House has been built there has been no renovation. It is not the problem of this administration, it has been there for long. We do put the request for renovation inside out budget but money was not released years back. The snake story is not the way we said it. The press developed it more than we said it. Then the big snake aspect been carried along with the story in the Internet is not from here. It is photoshopped, it is not from this hallowed chamber”
