The embattled speaker of Ondo State House of Assembly, Hon. Jumoke Akindele has blamed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) caucus who are trying to prove their loyalty to the incoming administration in the state for the crisis rocking the Assembly.

According to Ceoafrica, Akindele said, the people are desirous of becoming speaker and deputy speaker at all cost and are therefore playing to the gallery to show the incoming government that they are not in tune with the outgoing governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko.

In a statement made available to journalists in Akure, the embattled speaker noted that she was innocent of all the allegations levelled against her by the other faction.

According to her, “I wish to emphatically place it on record that the funds in question are meant for some projects in the House as passed in the budget and approved by the approving authority. Only the unfair ones who are hell bent on superintending the House funds have problems with where the funds are kept.

“However, I wish to state that the primary reason for the entire problem is because certain elements of the PDP caucus seem more interested in proving their loyalty to the incoming administration in Ondo State instead of their own party and are actively working hand in hand with their All Progressives Congress (APC) counterparts to destabilize what would have been one of the most peaceful transitions ever.

“Permit me to state at this juncture that I am not desperate to continue to sit as speaker in the Assembly. I wish to place it on record and I have said to all that cares to listen that I was actually set to resign because the geopolitical configuration of the state had changed since the emergence of the governor from the North and the deputy governor from the South.

“We are a people with an age long tradition that demands that the Speaker must of necessity emerge from the Central district of Ondo State.