The Speaker of Imo State House of Assembly, Kennedy Ibeh, has sacked the member representing Ngor Okpala State Constituency, Tochi Okere.
At a plenary on Thursday, Ibeh said he sacked the Ngor Okpala representative in line with the House Rules and the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
This is as the Speaker has also suspended three lawmakers for what he called dereliction of duty.
According to him, Okere had not attended plenary up to one- third since he was inaugurated as a lawmaker in 2019.
The speaker stated that the house register indicated that the sacked lawmaker only attended plenary 29 times in 2019, 14 times in 2020 and had not attended any plenary in 2021.
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Ibeh also stated that the parliament had received two petitions from Ngor Okpala, urging the Assembly to declare the seat vacant on the basis of non performance.
The speaker, therefore, asked the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct a bye-election to elect a new representative for the state constituency.
Meanwhile, the Speaker has suspended three lawmakers: Authur Egwim (Ideato North), Ngozi Obiefule,(Isu), and Obinna Okwara (Nkwerre).
He noted that the three suspended lawmakers failed to attend legislative activities on 2022 budget proposals as submitted to the Assembly by the state governor, Hope Uzodinma.
Our correspondent recalls that with the latest suspension of the three lawmakers, six lawmakers are now suspended after the immediate past speaker, Paul Emeziem, a former deputy governor, Okey Onyekanma and a former minority leader, Ekene Nnodimele, were slammed with indefinite suspension on November 8, the day Ibeh emerged the speaker.
