Last Tuesday, a Federal High Court in Lagos remanded the Speaker of Ogun State House of Assembly Olakunle Oluomo, in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), alongside the duo of Oladayo Samuel and Adeyemo Taiwo, the Assembly’s Director of Finance and the Clerk respectively. In this report, Assistant Editor, ‘Dare Odufowokan, recalls how party politics led to the current crisis rocking the legislative chamber.
The crisis currently rocking the Ogun State House of Assembly climaxed last Tuesday when Justice Daniel Osiagor of a Federal High Court in Lagos ordered the remand of the Speaker of Ogun State House of Assembl Olakunle Oluomo and two other defendants, following an 11 count charges of conspiracy, stealing, forgery and fraud of N4.4 billion, brought against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He ordered that they be remanded for maximum of one week at the EFCC’s custody until they perfect their bail.
The anti-graft agency alleged that Oluomo, Oladayo Samuel, Adeyemo Adedeji Taiwo, and Adeyanju Nimota Amoke, laundered over N2 billion of public funds among themselves, saying the act is against the provision of sections 18 (a), 15 (2) (d) of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act, 2011 as amended and punishable under section 15 (3) of the same Act. The Speaker was also charged for another missing N900,000,000 public funds allegedly embezzled by the defendants. The EFFC’s Lagos Head of Legal Monitoring Unit, Rotimi Oyedepo, filed the charges against the speaker and the three other defendants before the Federal High Court, Abeokuta, Ogun State.
Oluomo was last Thursday arrested by operatives of the anti-graft agency at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos. It will be recalled that trouble started after a former Deputy Speaker of the Assembly, Hon. Oludare Kadiri made damning allegations against the leadership of the House and added that his signature was forged to siphon funds from the coffers of the assembly. According to court papers, the EFCC has lined up 10 witnesses against the speaker. Before the Speaker’s arrest, the Assembly sued the agency in January at the Federal High Court sitting in Abeokuta.
In the suit, N0.FHC/ AB/CS/7/2022 dated 14th January 2022, the Assembly prayed for an order of interlocutory injunction restraining the EFCC from taking further steps, including but not limited to inviting, interrogating, imposing obligations and demanding or requiring the attendance of the plaintiffs/applicants in connection with the criminal allegation made against the speaker and some others by an aggrieved member of the Assembly.
The Assembly also sought alternatively to relief one (1) above order of interlocutory injunction directing the EFCC to maintain status quo as of 1st December 2021 and or stay all actions relating to the criminal investigation made by an aggrieved member against the plaintiffs, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit filed by the plaintiffs.
The Assembly followed it with a letter to the anti-graft agency, reminding the EFCC that it is legally barred from taking any steps or decision against them until their suit is decided by the court. “As you are surely aware, once a dispute has been submitted to the Court’s consideration for adjudication, parties must not usurp the court’s powers to resolve the matter submitted or do anything that may make the decision of the court nugatory. A respondent in an application is particularly obligated to await the outcome of the application and not resort to self-help, foist a completed act on the Court, or conduct itself as if no processes are pending,” the suit notice partly stated.
However, the efforts by the assembly could not restrain the EFCC from arresting the Ogun Speaker. According to many observers of the politics of the state, his arrest, detention and arraignment are today the climax of some intra party disagreements that are rocking the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Gateway State. A chieftain of the party who heads one of the government agencies in Abeokuta, the state capital, on Thursday told our correspondents that “the unfortunate events that led to the impeachment of Hon Oludare Kadiri as the Deputy Speaker of the State Assembly are the real causes of the current crisis rocking the assembly.”
The genesis
The Police in Ogun State in March 2021 arrested and detained the then Deputy Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Hon. Oludare Kadiri, for allegedly leading suspected hoodlums to invade residence of the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Tokunbo Talabi, in Oru-Ijebu, Ijebu North Local Government Area of the state. He was held at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at the Police headquarters, Eleweran, Abeokuta. The Deputy Speaker was also alleged to have led thugs to vandalise the residence of a former state legislator, Hon. Adebiyi Odugbesan. Trouble started when Kadiri allegedly accused the SSG and Adegbesan of hoarding the registration materials for the APC registration and revalidation exercise in the state.
The Police Public’s Relations Officer (PPRO) of the Command, DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, while confirming Kadiri’s arrest, said: “On the 20th of February 2021, the command received a complaint from one Mrs. Olabode Adegbesan of No. 6 Ayegbami street Awa ijebu who reported at Awa ijebu police station that, while she was at home at about 12noon, some people led by the Deputy speaker invaded their home, throwing stone into the house and calling out her husband Hon. Kunle Adegbesan to come out to be dealt with.
“In the process, the hoodlums vandalized the window glasses of the house before they left with threat to come back with more violence. Not quite an hour after the first report, one comrade Akeem Temitope Akilo also came to report that, he was at the house of the SSG’s father when the deputy speaker led some people to the house at about 12:55 pm, vandalized the window glasses and removed the APC flag hoisted therein and took it away. Also, at about 1:30pm of the same day, one Otunba Adetohun Oduwole reported that Kadiri led some thugs to her house and destroyed the front door of the house as well as window glasses before they left.
“While investigation into all the reports was going on, one Hon. Yinusa Adekunle reported that the register been used for the APC registration exercise has been forcefully seized by one Hon. Abagun Yinusa. This prompted the DPO Awa ijebu to visit the house of the said Hon.Abagun for the purpose of recovering the seized register. On getting there, the deputy speaker arrive the scene with about twenty men in two buses and descended heavily on the complainant, Hon Yinusa Adekunle, beat him mercilessly and almost killed him,” he added.
Kadiri however continued to maintain his innocence, claiming that the wjole allegations, arrest and detention were part of a plot to unjustly remove him from office as Deputy Speaker following his disagreements with some people in government and the ruling party. Indeed, before his arrest and detention, there had been moves to sack Kadiri, with an ad-hoc Committee set up by the Speaker, Hon. Kunle Oluomo, to investigate the allegations against Kadiri. Eventually, 20 lawmakers in the Assembly called for his impeachment as the Deputy Speaker for alleged gross misconduct.
The lawmakers in a letter, dated Tuesday, February 23, which they jointly signed and addressed to the Clerk of the House, accused Kadiri of alleged “abuse of office, threat to lives and properties, conduct likely to cause breach of peace and attempted murder, committed in his constituency as petitioned by Chief Adebiyi Odugbesan from his constituency”.
They urged the House to commence the process of removing Kadiri from office as the Deputy Speaker of the House, with immediate effect. Few days after the lawmakers signed the petition, Kadiri was removed as Deputy Speaker on allegations of gross misconduct. Insisting he was unjustly removed and victimized, Kadiri after his sack, vowed to fight “those who treated him un fairly in spite of how he had supported and expressed unalloyed loyalty to his leaders and the party.” Many analysts believed Kadiri’s resolve not to take his impeachment lying low set the stage for the current travails of some members of the assembly, especially Speaker Oluomo.
Similarly, the sacked Deputy Speaker’s mother, Alhaja Adetola Kadiri, vowed that she would never forgive Governor Dapo Abiodun or have anything to do with him politically again. The former Women Leader of the APC in Ijebu North Local Government, said she was disappointed by Gov Abiodun, for whom she said a lot was sacrificed to ensure his victory in 2019. “Because, when Dapo Abiodun declared to contest, he called me; I was with Amosun then, he begged me to come work for him. The day he called me, four of us went there. I told Dare before I went there and he gave me the go-ahead.
“When I came back, I told him everything Dapo Abiodun said. Dare was the one begging me to work with Abiodun. “I can never forgive Dapo Abiodun, because I never expected what he did to my son. Although, he has apologized already, I won’t work with him again. I wish you were around as at that time, without Dare, APC wouldn’t have won Ifelodun. Let them come again for the second term, that is when they will know what politics is all about,’ Kadiri’s mother, a prominent political leader in Ogun East, vowed.
The missiles
Soon after he was impeached, Kadiri fired a salvo at the leadership of the Assembly, and by extension, the Dapo Abiodun government, when he alleged during an interview with selected journalists in Abeokuta, that his signature was forged to swindle the state assembly of about N50 million. The lawmaker, who represents Ijebu North Constituency 2, added that he was kicked out of office for asking for accountability of the finances of the House, being the Vice Chairman of the House Committee on Finance. He said that for raising questions, he was impeached and removed from all committees in the house.
Fielding questions from journalists, the ex-deputy speaker said, “I’m just coming back from abroad, I’ve been on medical leave for about two months. I was on bed when I saw a report online and attached to it is a document with my signature. Like two to three days later, I got a call from the EFCC asking me to come. I went there on Monday. They asked me one or two questions and they showed me my signature and asked if I was the one that sent it out. I said no. They asked me about the signature and I told them I don’t know anything about that signature and I didn’t collect any money.
“I was aware that the Speaker, being the leader of the house, should be able to explain things about the signature. That was all and they allowed me to go. I know the EFCC is investigating the House. I was impeached because I was asking questions, and I felt the speaker was not open about the accountability of the House. When I was the deputy speaker, I don’t know all about the finances of the House, the amount the executive was giving us. I don’t know about our running cost. How can I be the chairman of the committee who will sign a document to everyone that the money was spent in the judiciary and I don’t know anything about it? That led to the impeachment.
“He (the Speaker) removed me from all committees in the House. I don’t belong to any committee anymore. Yet, I didn’t talk.” At the EFCC office, Kadiri said he saw bundles of documents with the signatures of many members of the House, adding that his own signature seen on the document was forged. “What I saw online was just two documents. I saw bundles of documents at the EFCC office with my signature forged on it. A very big Ghana-must-go bag with my fake signatures and other members’ signatures. They claimed that I collected money like N2million, N400,000, N3million, N4million, N1million at different times in the last two years.
“They said I went to foreign trainings. I went for seminars, slept in hotels. Which foreign training? Since I came, I have never been to any training or seminar and I didn’t sign any document. The money they said I signed was an average of N50 million. It can’t be less than that for my own alone,” he said. When asked who he suspects to have forged his signature, Kadiri said the speaker “should be able to explain. “The speaker should be able to answer the question because he is the chief officer of the house. Everything goes through him. So, it’s Mr. Speaker that I will allege, probably with some other people but I don’t know.
“He was the one that took the documents to EFCC, so he should be the one to tell us. That’s the question I want to ask when I go back to the office on Tuesday that, who forged this signature? I will speak for myself, I don’t know about other people. EFCC said they will be calling others at the appropriate time. Normally our monthly maintenance allowance comes into our accounts. So, I can only be responsible for the money paid into my account. All the money being alleged was released in cash through the banks. So, the speaker should be able to explain how he was using my signature to go and collect money in the bank,” he added.
To further press home his demand for fairness and justice, Kadiri, dragged the Assembly before a Federal High Court sitting in Abeokuta, seeking nullification of his removal by the Assembly. He joined the Speaker, Olakunle Oluomo, as the first respondent, in the case with the Assembly as the second respondent, seeking N1.5bn as damages for what he called illegal removal, in the suit marked FHC/AB/FHR/35/2021 and dated March 10. In his affidavit in support of the application, Kadiri argued that the Speaker was at the centre of the dispute which formed part of the grounds for which he was impeached and that the same Speaker presided over his impeachment.
Deepening crisis
In his reactions to the missiles fired his way by Kadiri and his travails in the hands of EFCC, Oluomo, upon his release from detention on Friday, dismissed his former deputy’s allegation, saying “by law, I am not the Accounting Officer of the House, for emphasis, the House under my leadership operates only one bank account since 2019, through which running cost and allowances are paid directly into the bank accounts of individual Honourable members and staff of the House including the petitioner. Also, charges 10 and 11 are for the Eighth legislature before I became the Speaker.
I also like to say that the refusal to honour the initial invitation of EFCC was because of the method adopted by EFCC is against section 36 of the Constitution and we challenged it in court, this is in the public domain as it was widely reported but the EFCC refused to wait for the pronouncement in that case before taking further steps, despite having joined issues with us in court.
I have always been disciplined and upright in my position, conducts and dealings with people, I shall continue to remain myself with truth and honour as my goal. I thank everyone that showed love and concern in the last few days. Thanks and God bless you all”.
Days after Oluomo’s arrest, the crisis within the party deepened when the leadership of the APC Ward 11 in Ifelodun constituency, suspended Kadiri, from the party, over allegations of anti-party activities. His suspension was affirmed at the ward Congress, held last Sunday, with immediate effect. He was accused of plotting with an opposition party to work against the interest of APC in the next general elections.
The decision to suspend Kadiri was said to have been contained in a report submitted by a disciplinary committee constituted to investigate the allegation. The report partly reads, “After the report submitted by the disciplinary committee that investigated the anti-party activities of Oluwadare Kadiri (MABA), a former deputy Speaker of Ogun state House of Assembly representing Ifelodun constituency, Ijebu north local government, Ogun state to the Ward Exco. The issue was extensively discussed.”
However, the embattled former Deputy Speaker dismissed the suspension, insisting that the plot was hatched by some jobless set of people within the party. “These people belong to a faction and I don’t even recognise the chairman. Who elected him? I don’t know how he is now parading himself as my chairman. He is not the elected chairman. There is a case in court to determine who the authentic chairman of this ward. When I see an official letter from the party, I already know what to do. There are procedures everywhere, they should go and look for jobs. I’m just seeing it on social media. I have not seen any official letter to that effect,” he said.