Court restrains Oyo Assembly from impeaching Deputy Governor

An Oyo State High Court sitting in Ibadan has ordered the Oyo State House of Assembly to halt every impeachment process against the embattled Deputy Governor of the state, Rauf Olaniyan.

Justice Ladiran Akintola of the high court gave the ruling on Wednesday when the case came up at Court 7 of the State High Court, Ring Road, Ibadan.

According to the Court, the status-quo must be maintained pending the hearing of the application for interlocutory injunctions before it.

The case had earlier been adjourned on Tuesday till Wednesday due to the absence of the legal counsel to the Oyo State House of Assembly, the Speaker of the House and Clerk.

Olaniyan had dragged the parties to court to seek an injunction to stop what he described as “faulty process” of his impeachment.

The Oyo State House of Assembly had initiated Impeachment proceedings against the Deputy Governor, Engineer Rauf Aderemi Olaniyan, over his defection to the All Progressives Congress from the Peoples Democratic Party.

The Deputy Governor had been at daggers drawn with the State Governor, Seyi Makinde, since shortly after the shock victory over the All Progressives Congress in the 2019 Election in Oyo State.

Observers had pinpointed the desire of the Governor to have his own man as his deputy as the mahjor point of divergence between the two with many acussing the governor of initiating an impeachment move aginst his deputy sometimes in late 2019, a move that was torpedoed by the lockdown ocassioned by the Covid 19 Pandemic across the Country.

Since then rumours of bad blood between the two had become a a hot topic between Politically Connected people in the State culminating in the realisation that the governor will edge out his deputy for the 2023 Election.

This realisation led him to defect to the All Progressives Congress when it became obvious that he will not be picked, his defection did not however go down well with members of the Peoples Democratic Party who have vowed to reclaim the party’s mandate from him by his removal from Office.