By Ken Afor
Members of the Ondo State House of Assembly have said they will go ahead with impeachment proceedings against the Deputy Governor of the State, Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, despite the Federal High Court ruling.
On Tuesday, the Federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, granted the application filed by the deputy governor seeking to stop the impeachment proceedings embarked upon by the state parliament.
Justice Emeka Nwite who presided over the matter held that he is granting the application in the interest of justice.
Justice Nwite in his ruling restrained Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, or his associates from harassing, intimidating, embarrassing and preventing Aiyedatiwa from carrying out his duties as deputy governor of the state as enshrined in the constitution.
Weighing in on the matter, the Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Oladiji Olamide Adesanmi, in a statement said the House will abide by the constitutional procedures of impeachment.
The House said it “will not abdicate or compromise its sacred constitutional duty to hold elected public officers accountable, particularly where there are prima facie serious allegations of corruption and abuse of power levelled against the Deputy Governor in this case.”
On its decision to go ahead with its impeachment, the House cited the case between Abaribe and Abia State House of Assembly (2022) 14 NWLR (Pt. 788) 466, where it noted that the Court of Appeal emphatically stated that it was wrong for the Appellant to jump the gun by rushing to the Court to stop his impeachment process on the ground of alleged breach of fair hearing when the panel to investigate and hear him had not even been constituted.
The statement said: “The Court of Appeal then restated that by the provision of Section 188 (10) of the Constitution, no court has the jurisdiction at that stage to interfere in the legislative proceedings for impeachment.
“The Supreme Court has repeatedly restated that the Court can only intervene when the procedures for impeachment have been breached. In this case however, the Deputy Governor rushed to court even before the notice of impeachment was served on him. For the records, no procedures have been breached in any way.
“In view of these, the House has directed its team of lawyers to investigate the purported injunction secured by the Deputy Governor and report any judicial officer who might have abused his office in granting the unconstitutional ex-parte injunction to the appropriate institution for necessary disciplinary action.”
Aiyedatiwa landed in the eye of the storm after he was indicted by the House for gross misconduct.
He was accused of allegedly diverting the sum of N300 million from the federal government’s palliative for the purchase of an SUV for his personal use, an accusation he had denied.
