Tag: impeachment notice

In the continuing saga of Governor Ayo Fayose’s impeachment, it is hard to tell who enjoys the most support: the governor, House of Assembly Speaker Adewale Omirin, or the constitution. Mr Fayose was last week served impeachment notice by 19 members of the House of Assembly led by Dr Omirin. The governor has done his best to evade direct service, and has instead tried to mobilise public sympathy. He argues that the 19 lawmakers, all members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), were attempting to use the tool of impeachment to secure what they lost through the ballot box.

Does the governor have the people’s support? There is no doubt that his supporters, most of whom have been publicly identified as trade union members, artisans, and office holders, are very vocal and troublesome and have loudly proclaimed their support for the governor and bitterness against the 19 lawmakers and the APC. These supporters have taken to the street and are constantly in the news, presenting a facade of huge and undeniable support for the paranoid Mr Fayose. There is, however, no doubt that over the months, as the governor displayed greater imbecility, the angry crowd of supporters, though still vociferous and implacable, had thinned out.

Dr Omirin also commands a huge and perhaps discrete following, first from a majority of lawmakers, and second from those pained by the precipitous decline of public morals and standards in this state of great learning. The Speaker’s educated supporters select and calibrate their responses, preferring the rule of law and due process. They naturally face the dilemma of seeming to be either docile in the face of Mr Fayose’s monstrous behaviour, or are in reality not too bothered whichever way the pendulum would swing.

The third force in the saga is of course the constitution, which at the moment seems pristinely alone and isolated. No matter what support both Mr Fayose and Dr Omirin get from their partisans, the constitution is at the heart of the quarrel and controversy, and will probably be the deciding factor. Who between the governor and the Speaker has acted constitutionally? And what does the constitution say about the impeachment? In the view of Femi Falana, a lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), the impeachment notice served by the 19 lawmakers is in order and has precedence. The notice, anchored on eight constitutional breaches against the governor, appeared to have been inspired by the continuing buffoonery of the governor, including dealing with seven lawmakers as the legal and properly constituted House of Assembly under the leadership of the usurper, Dele Olugbemi.

It does not, however, appear that too many people are paying attention to what the constitution says. Politics predominates, and decisions and actions are determined by whom the partisans support. While Ekiti and Nigerians wait to see whether the Chief Judge would set up an investigative panel as directed by the House of Assembly under Speaker Omirin, some lawyers cite a judgement of the Supreme Court, referenced in the case of the impeachment of former Oyo State governor, Rashidi Ladoja, indicating that impeachment notice could not be valid except it proceeded from a sitting in the legislative chamber. But what if the lawmakers were barred from the legislative chamber by violent groups, such as clearly happened in Ekiti last week?

It is not certain how the impeachment matter would be resolved. But if the farcical performance of Mr Olugbemi, leader of the Group of Seven who pretends to be the Speaker, is anything to go by, Ekiti is in trouble. Mr Olugbemi speaks very bad English, could hardly read his own prepared statement disputing Dr Omirin’s impeachment notice, his brief remarks were redolent with so many shibboleths, and he obviously knew little law and legislative practices. It was thus puzzling to see the governor embrace such appalling farce rather than concoct his own farce for which he is eminently gifted.