NASS Should Amend Constitution, Spell Out Deputy Gov’s Role, Says Agboola

A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Agboola Ajayi says the National Assembly should amend the Constitution and spell out the duties of a deputy governor.

Ajayi, the PDP governorship candidate for the Ondo election billed for later in the year, said if the country’s laws are amended, it will help in quelling issues arising from the roles of deputy governors often called “spare tyres”.

“The National Assembly should do something about that, spell it out and define the constitutional role for the office of the governor and the vice presidential office,” he said on Tuesday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today, admitting that the law limits the deputy governor.
“That is the office, you can only function at the discretion of your principal and he assigns roles to you. If he feels like he does not want to play with you, that’s fine.”

But I think we should amend that aspect and give them a constitutional role to make them more relevant because it is a joint ticket.”

Since the return of democracy to Nigeria in 1999, the country’s political scene has witnessed brawls between governors and their deputies.

Relationships between governors and their deputies have often assumed frosty dimensions.

Several deputies have fallen out with their principals who often accused them of usurpation. Some deputies are even replaced by the governors before the end of their tenures.

Attempts by some deputy governors to succeed their principals have mostly ended in fractured relationships. The latest example is in Edo State where the House of Assembly impeached Philip Shaibu as deputy governor.

That move was the end of a long battle between Shaibu and his principal Governor Godwin Obaseki in the former’s quest to contest the state’s governorship poll.

But Agboola is promising to redefine the relationship between governors and their deputies if he wins the Ondo governorship election.

“If become the governor of Ondo State, I am going to do a different thing. Keep my deputy governor busy. Let people see him as part of the government,” the former “Everywhere crises here and there [between governor and deputy] and we must address that issue.”

“If I am a governor, I will strengthen that office and make it very effective,” he said, dismissing fears of usurpation.