Ondo Assembly Ignores Court Order, Directs Chief Judge to Begin Deputy Governor’s Impeachment

Ondo State House of Assembly has again directed the State Chief Judge, to immediately constitutes a panel, to investigate the allegations levelled against the State Deputy Governor.

The House Speaker, Olamide Oladiji, issues the directive during the Tuesday plenary when he accused the deputy governor of refusing to reply to the allegations levelled against him.

The constitution of the panel is to kick start the process of impeaching the Deputy Governor, Lucky Ayedatiwa for an alleged gross misconduct.

Last week, the State Chief Judge had refused to constitute the impeachment panel as directed by the House, due to an exparte order obtained by the Deputy Speaker from a federal high court in Abuja.

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The exparte order restrained the house from embarking on the impeachment of the Deputy Governor.

The House on Tuesday, issued a fresh directive to the state chief judge to initiate the impeachment process.

Also, the House petitioned the National Judicial Council over the exparte order issued by a Federal High Court.

The house argued that the exparte order is encroaching on its constitutional duty as an arm of government.

“On the 25th of September, a substituted service of the notice of allegations was made to the deputy governor, duly signed by more than one-third of the Honourable Members of the House as required by the Constitution in Section 188 Sub-section 2,” he said.

According to him, the Constitution stipulates that the Assembly should wait for seven days for the embattled deputy governor to respond, which has lapsed.

Following the development, the Assembly has directed the Chief Judge of the State to constitute a panel to investigate the allegations of gross misconduct against the deputy governor.