Plot to impeach Ekiti State governor, Ayo Fayose, suffered a setback yesterday as the state Chief Judge, Justice Ayodeji Daramola has yet to constitute the seven-man panel that would have investigated the eight-point impeachable offences leveled against the governor, as directed by the factional Speaker, Dr. Adewale Omirin after the time frame expired.

The 19-member Adewale Omirin-led APC lawmakers claimed to have sat at Mary Hill Boys High Secondary School, Oke-Ila, Ado-Ekiti where resolutions to impeach the governor and to direct the Chief Judge to raise the committee to do so were adopted.

Omirin repeated his claim last Thursday in a statement that he had again directed the CJ to raise the panel within another seven days, which lapsed yesterday, Wednesday, April 22, 2015.

Checks by Daily Sun from both Judiciary and the feuding parties revealed that the CJ was yet to receive such directive.

While the state judiciary headquarters denied receipt of any directive to that effect, a counter directive by the new speaker, loyal to Fayose, Mr. Dele Olugbemi, asking the CJ to ignore Omirin, might have constituted legal encumbrances to the plot.

Olugbemi, while addressing newsmen last week, had asked the CJ not to be misled by the APC lawmakers, as he remained the authentic Speaker of the House, following the impeachment of Omirin since November last year.

Besides, Olugbemi had told the CJ in his counter-directive that Omirin was currently challenging his impeachment at a Federal High Court in Lagos, which made any action on the matter prejudiced and contemptuous.

Further checks also revealed that the CJ was also in a fix, as there was no way he could have raised a secretariat staff for the panel as a result of the on-going strike by the state chapter of Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria, (JUSUN) which had seen the Judiciary headquarters in Ado-Ekiti being over grown with weeds.

This is coming just as the state Council of Obas, at an emergency meeting on Thursday, under the chairmanship of Onitaji of Itaji, Oba Adamo Babalola commended the Chief Judge for applying maturity in the matter and for living up to his oath of office.

The council also praised him for not aggravating the already tensed situation by being neutral in the crisis.

•Adapted from Daily SUN. Photo shows Fayose.

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