By Yaqoub Popoola / Ado Ekiti
Opeyemi Michael Bamidele
Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Legislative Budget and Research, Opeyemi Bamidele, has branded the threat by some leaders of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State to recall him as empty.
Bamidele maintained that nobody can force him to resign as a member of the National Assembly over his insistence to contest against Governor Kayode Fayemi in the 2014 governorship election.
The federal lawmaker was responding to the statement credited to Ekiti APC chairman, Jide Awe, that Bamidele should resign his membership of the party, having resigned as the leader of the Ekiti caucus at the House of Representatives on Wednesday, October 23, 2013.
In the letter addressed to Fayemi and interim national chairman of the party, Bisi Akande, the lawmaker predicated his resignation as Ekiti caucus leader on his avowed interest to contest the 2014 election based on people's request.
In a statement in Ado Ekiti on Saturday by his media aide, Ahmed Salami, the governorship aspirant said he expected Awe, as a political leader and experienced politician, to have been well informed that APC is yet to register his members across the country.
Bamidele pointed out that under the Electoral Act 2011, APC is a newly registered political party that has not carried out any membership registration drive, saying for Awe to have asked him to resign from the party smacked of ignorance.
He maintained that he does not have to resign from APC to pursue his aspiration, saying he has no membership card to claim that he is a bona fide member of the party, likewise Awe and other members of the new party.
Bamidele added that it was demeaning for Awe to have made the pronouncement, on the premise that "the leadership of the Ekiti caucus was just a political arrangement that has no legal backing. Which law did I breach to warrant this unnecessary criticism?"
He advised the APC chairman and those threatening to recall him from the House of Representatives over his interest in the 2014 governorship race to bury the 'wild' thought.
"I am carrying the mandate of my people who elected me on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in 2011. As things stand today, ACN is no longer in existence, having merged with other parties to form APC.
"So I have never defected from any party, even if I decide to contest on the platform of another party because that party under which I was elected is dead.
"I was quite aware of the lacuna created by the demise of ACN; that was why I decided to write my resignation letter as a caucus leader to APC national leaders and Governor Fayemi, since I knew the state leadership has not been constituted".
