A serving judge in Osun State Judiciary, Justice Folahanmi Oloyede, has been invited by the House of Assembly panel set up to probe allegations of financial recklessness raised against Governor Rauf Aregbesola by the judge.
A source close to the judge told our correspondent in Osogbo on Sunday that Oloyede would appear before the panel on Tuesday, following her invitation by the panel headed by the Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mr. Adegboye Akintunde.
The source said, “Justice Oloyede will on Tuesday appear before the ad hoc committee set up to probe her allegations against Governor Aregbesola.
“She is ready to defend her petition before the panel and she will go there with evidence to back up her claims.”
The Chief Press Secretary to the Speaker, Mr. Goke Butika, also confirmed the invitation of the judge in a statement he made available to our correspondent latter.
He said the letter of invitation to appear before the panel read that she was expected to appear to defend her allegation on Tuesday.
Butika quoted the chairman of the panel to have said in the letter that no form of protest or demonstration would be allowed at the premises of the House of Assembly on that day.
Quoting the letter of invitation Butika wrote, “You (Oloyede) are to appear before the panel constituted by the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Najeem Salaam, saddled with the responsibility to investigate the allegations raised by your petition, and you are enjoined to appear with your evidence to substantiate the allegations.
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“No form of fanfare, pro or anti-protesters would be tolerated within the premises of state parliament. No trouble makers would be allowed to disrupt the peace of the state.”
The judge had asked the assembly to impeach the governor based on the series of allegations of corruption against him.
Although the governor has insisted that his administration received N204bn from the Federal Allocations and internally generated revenue since the inception of his administration to the end of 2014, the judge said the state got N538bn.
Her petition read in part, “Mr. Governor is deemed to have received on behalf of the state, and local governments, revenues well in excess of N538bn within the period under reference. Therefore, the figures being currently touted by Mr. Governor are cooked, manipulated, fallacious and fraudulent. They are undeniable evidence of corruption!
“But in spite of all this huge earnings, and for no justifiable reasons, at least not justifiable before rationally thinking minds, coupled with the accumulation of foreign and local debts, Mr. Governor could still not provide the much touted infrastructures and to make matters worse, he couldn’t even discharge the simplest and least complicated of functions in governance, which is to maintain the civil service, pay pensions, run public school and hospitals and the maintenance of existing ‘Trunk B’ Roads.”
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