…heads to court
The impeached Speaker, Ogun State House of Assembly, Hon. Olakunle Oluomo has faulted his impeachment by 18 members of the House of Assembly.
Oluomo was on Tuesday impeached by 18 members of the Assembly for alleged gross misconduct, high hardedness, poor leadership style, lack of transparency among other allegations.
But Oluomo on Friday dismissed his impeachment, insisting that he remains the Speaker of the House.
Oluomo while speaking at a news conference at his quarters in Abeokuta, the State capital, described his removal as a coup, noting that the legislators failed to follow due process.
He pointed out that, the lawmakers have no cogent reasons for his ‘illegal’ removal, stressing that, he ought to have been given 72 hours notification before the impeachment process could be validated.
Because I believe the leaders of the government and the party will intervene once again by witness the what I realize that’s the intervention is not forthcoming, the rise but I think I need to address the press.
And let me start by saying, I’m very thankful and grateful to the governor of the state to the public, for the fear, just unimpeachable intervention, which was confirmed in the government press release yesterday. We just said alleged impeachment of the speaker and luckily time alone. And let me dwell on what really happened.
“I have no problem with my colleagues. Although from day one, I emerged as the speaker in June last year, since that time, I’ve not been finding it easy. Some members who did not want me to be speaker from that time, have not reneged from terrorizing me in the house. It’s been one problem or the other.
“You don’t need to take laws into your hands. I am the most luckiest legislator in the state that have won my election, back to back for four times from my constituency. I cannot be more lucky than that. I’ve been a member, from a member to Deputy Speaker, Deputy speaker to Speaker and Speaker once again. So there is nothing that is special to me in the seat of the speaker that I cannot leave as a Democrat as a young journalist that grew up to this stage as a civil and human rights activist from my childhood. So I’m not the type of person that does say you want to perpetuate himself in office for no reason and on that note, I want to say that I respect the opinion and believe that the House of Assembly has the right to elect and change the leadership at any given time. What I’m saying is you’ve got to follow due process. We are lawmakers. We’re not supposed to break the law.
“Our rule is very very clear. It is easy for you to appoint elected speaker but the law makes it difficult for you to remove the speaker in a Gestapo manner. I am a due process person. I believe in law, I believe in due process. So, what they are supposed to have done was to serve me impeachment notice and give me 72 hours to respond. When I respond, the clerk will take my response and give to all of them one by one. The law says if they are satisfied with my response the matter died there.”
He, therefore, said he had sought redress at the Ogun State High Court to challenge his impeachment.
