Impeachment call: Aregbesola replies Osun judge’s allegations

SEGUN ADEYEMI, Osogbo

Osun State governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has responded to the petition written against him by a serving judge in the state judiciary, Justice Folahanmi Oloyede.

The Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mr. Najeem Salaam, said this in a statement made available to our correspondent in Osogbo yesterday by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Goke Butika.

Oloyede, in a petition to the House of Assembly, accused Aregbesola of financial recklessness and asked the lawmakers to impeach the governor.

The speaker, who said earlier that the Assembly had forwarded the petition to the governor for his response, said the lawmakers could not do anything until they received the governor’s response.

Following the receipt of Aregbesola’s defence, the speaker asked the judge to prepare to appear before an investigative committee he had set up on the matter.

The speaker said the Assembly was now ready to investigate the allegations, while assuring the people of the state that their investigation would be a thorough one.

The statement reads in part, “State of Osun House of Assembly has expressed its readiness to address the petition sent to it by a judge of the state High Court, Justice Olamide Folahanmi Oloyede, having obtained the response of Governor Rauf Aregbesola on the matter.”

Meanwhile, the Coalition of Groups for Good Governance has berated the judge for asking the Assembly to impeach Aregbesola.

The Chairman of CGGG, Waheed Adediran, said this in a statement made available to our correspondent in Osogbo.

The group also said the governor was not guilty of financial recklessness levelled against him by the judge.

Adediran explained that the 50 percent crash in the price of crude oil and crude oil theft during the regime of former President Goodluck Jonathan was responsible for the sharp reduction in revenue allocation to the state.

He said Aregbesola worked hard to raise the state’s internally generated revenue from N300, 000,000 per month to over N1.6 billion per month, adding that the governor had done so much to develop the state.

Adediran added that Osun State, which was second to the last on the allocation ladder, ironically, had the second largest workforce in the country.

The group urged public servants and other stakeholders in the state to support Aregbesola’s administration in its efforts to transform the state into an economically viable one.