Reps Direct IGP To Probe Attack On Ekiti judges, APC Lawmakers Say No Plot To Impeach Fayose

 
The House of Representatives, yesterday, passed a motion urging the Inspector General of Police, IGP, to commence an immediate enquiry into the circumstances that led to the attack on some High Court judges by thugs in Ekiti State.

A motion urging the probe was sponsored by Honourable Ifeoluwa Arowosoge (APC-Ekiti)
. The House, presided over by Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, condemn in its entirety, the action of thugs who assaulted Justices Isaac Ogunyemi and John Adeleye few weeks ago in Ekiti State, in an apparent crude effort to dissuade the two judges from hearing a case against the then governor elect, Ayodele Fayose.
“On Monday  22, 2014, thugs in their hundreds invaded and sacked a High Court in Ado-Ekiti while hearing was in progress in a case filed sometime in May 2014 by a group called E-11, a pressure group, based in Ekiti State.
“Justice Ogunyemi was beaten up by the thugs, who also tore his court records and smashed the court’s window louvers “, Arowosoge said.
He recalled that “on Thursday of the same week, being September 25, 2014, another Judge, Justice John Adeleye was also beaten, dragged on the floor with his official regalia torned, while other judicial officers, lawyers litigants as well as journalists were equally attacked by thugs”.
Arowosoge said, “ the failure of the security agents to deal appropriately with the invasion of the courts had occasioned the avoidable escalation of violence, leading to the unfortunate loss of life, later in the week, of Chief Omolafe Aderiye, former Chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, in the state, and properties worth millions of Naira destroyed by rampaging thugs”.
He expressed concerns, that the violence which erupted at the Ekiti State High Court, grounded all activities in the other courts, including the magistrate courts, Federal High Court, Court of Appeal and even the Ekiti State Election Petition Tribunal, all of which are located in the same premises.
He warned that if ugly trends are not addressed quickly, the independence of the judiciary, which should be an inviolable tenet of any democracy, would be threatened by assaults and intimidation of judges and other judicial officers.
Meanwhile, the storms are gathering in the Ekiti State House of Assembly over the ownership by some members of business organisations in the state.
A member of the state House of Assembly, Hon Dele Olugbemi, said yesterday that it was wrong for any elected official to own businesses while still enjoying the perquisites of such office, saying the Code of Conduct Bureau, would have to investigate the Speaker, Dr Adewale Omirin, and possibly prosecute him for abuse of office.
Olugbemi, one of the six former All Progressives Congress, APC, lawmakers who defected to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on the inauguration of PDP government in the state last week, spoke against the backdrop of the ownership by the speaker of one of the petrol filling stations that were sealed by the state government on Tuesday for contravening environmental laws.
But the Speaker said at a press conference yesterday that his ownership of the business outfit did not contravene the Code of Conduct Bureau’s regulation, contrary to what the PDP and others had made the public to believe.
It would be recalled that there had been war of words between the governor, Ayodele Fayose and the Speaker over the sealing off of Omirin’s petrol filling station under construction alongside other petrol filling stations sealed off by the state government on Tuesday for contravention of environmental laws.
While Omirin had in a statement by his media adviser, Wole Olujobi, described the action as persecution over his refusal to join the PDP, the governor, in a reaction by his Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Adelusi, had said the Speaker was being haunted by his shadow, saying sealing off of the stations in residential areas was to restore sanity and prevent environmental hazard. The speaker, alongside his Deputy, Hon Adetunji Orisalade; and the Chairman, House Committee on Information, Hon Churchill Adedipe; who spoke at a press conference addressed by 16 APC lawmakers in the House, dismissed allegation that the 26-member Assembly was planning to impeach the governor as spurious.
They also dispelled the allegation leveled against the APC lawmakers by the PDP that they received about N1 billion from an APC leader in Lagos State to oust Fayose.

 National Mirror