Impeachment: Factional Speaker Urges CJ To Disregard Letter To Raise Panel on Fayose

A factional Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Hon. Dele Olugbemi, on Friday urged the state Chief Judge, Justice Ayo Daramola, to disregard any letter from the Assembly directing him to constitute an investigative panel to probe Governor Ayo Fayose in relation to an impeachment notice. Olugbemi, at a press conference held in front of the Speaker’s official residence in Ado Ekiti, said no such letter emanated from the Assembly. At the press conference were the seven lawmakers on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, the speaker’s aides and the Sergeant at Arms. The speaker also displayed both the old and new maze of the Assembly to prove that he was still in control of the assembly. It will be recalled that the 19 APC lawmakers, led by another factional Speaker, Hin. Adewale Omirin, had on Thursday claimed that they sat at the Mary Hills Secondary School, Ado Ekiti, where they said it was resolved to write a letter requesting the CJ to raise a seven-man panel within seven days to probe Fayose on alleged impeachable offences. The APC lawmakers had earlier dispatched a “notice of misconduct” to the governor, accusing him of eight impeachable offences bordering on impunity, violence, maladministration and spending state’s funds without the approval of the Assembly among other constitutional breaches. Olugbemi described Omirin as an impostor, adding that the former speaker was duly removed on November 20, last year. He said Omirin’s removal paved the way for his legitimate emergence as the new speaker of the assembly. Olugbemi said: “We never wrote any letter to the Chief Judge directing him to constitute an investigative panel, neither was the House involved in any impeachable proceedings against the executive governor of our great state. “In further refutation of the ongoing brigandage, I wish to state that the former speaker, Dr. Adewale Omirin, was duly removed as the speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly on the 20th day of November, 2014 and his removal paved the way for my legitimate emergence as the new speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly.” While describing the APC lawmakers’ sitting as illegal, Olugbemi said: “All legitimate sessions of any House of Assembly takes place in the Hallowed Chambers of the House of Assembly. “Indeed any other purported sitting of the House at any other location outside the Hallowed Chamber of the House of Assembly is null and void and of no effect whatsoever. “This is more so when such sittings purportedly took place without the principal officers here present with me now.” Olugbemi dismissed an online report that his security aides had been withdrawn. Asked if he had been attending the Speakers’ Forum meeting since he assumed office, Olugbemi described the Forum as “a committee of friends”, saying no meetings had been held by the Forum in the last five months. He faulted Omirin’s claim that the 19 APC lawmakers were still intact, saying: “They have not been together. “At times, they are either 14 or 15.”