A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, says he does not believe that the Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, is involved in the move by the state House of Assembly to impeach his deputy, Lucky Aiyedatiwa.
As part of the impeachment process against the deputy governor, the Ondo State House of Assembly has levelled various claims against Aiyedatiwa.
Aiyedatiwa served as acting governor until September 7, 2023, when Governor Rotimi Akeredolu returned from a three-month medical leave in Germany, with many accusing him of impeachment.
In the governor’s defence, Adegboruwa, who was a guest on Channels Televisions Politics Today on Thursday, said Akeredolu has no intention of causing political strife in his state.
“You know how politics go in Nigeria, people just cook up all manner of allegations in respect with whatever political allegations that they have.
“I know his excellency, the governor of Ondo state as a man of courage, transparency and accountability. I am sure he is not involved in all this.
“I believe that in the course of time, he will play his fatherly role and call all the gladiators to order and let governance take its centre stage in that state. I don’t think that this is the time for this kind of political tension,” said Adegboruwa.
The SAN proposed that for progress and unification to occur, the political landscape must reach a point where those in positions of authority must find a way to set aside their personal interests in order to advance government.
“My grouse is simply that these opportunities for people to leave their state correctly should not be dwarfed by matters of lack of due process in order to make sure the responsibility entrusted to them by the people is executed faithfully.
“The governor and the deputy are from the same political party, that is why I asked that his intervention is necessary because he claims to be in support of the governor because allegedly the acting governor was disloyal when he was acting in his absence which I believe probably may not be the case.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Oshati Olatunji, who was also a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, maintained that they are not witch-hunting the Deputy Governor, but said that he has to defend himself from allegation of misconduct levelled against him.
“There are some allegations that borders on emotions, we don’t want to take it up emotionally, which by the time we finish our investigations we will be able to explain better. There are many allegations and it borders on misconduct.
“It is our duty that when you receive a petition, it is best thing for us to look into it. We have said it on several fora that we are not witch-hunting, we are just doing our job and our job is to investigate and by the time we finish the investigation the whole world will see. We are not after witch-hunting anybody; we are after sanitising the system.
Olatunji said that the House has sent invitation to the Deputy Governor to come and defend himself. According to him, he has seven days to appear before the House.