An Appeal Court sitting in Ibadan on Tuesday dismissed the appeal filed by the former Oyo State Deputy Governor, Engr. Rauf Olaniyan, challenging his impeachment on July 18, 2022.
Olaniyan was removed from office over allegations of gross misconduct and financial impropriety.
The seven-member panel, led by Justice Christopher Kayode, upheld the impeachment, finding Olaniyan guilty of the allegations.
The Oyo State House of Assembly had ratified his removal.
Olaniyan, through his lawyer Chief Afolabi Fasanu, SAN, initially filed a suit before Justice Bayo Taiwo of an Oyo State High Court, seeking to nullify the impeachment.
He argued that the constitution of the panel by the then Chief Judge, Justice Munta Abimbola, was improper and unconstitutional. Additionally, he claimed that the House of Assembly did not adhere to the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds majority of members signing the impeachment notice.
But the lower court, on September 1, 2022, declared the impeachment constitutional and in order.
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Olaniyan, thereafter filed an appeal marked CA/IB/136/2023, asking it to upturn the decision of the High Court and declare his impeachment illegal and unconstitutional.
Chief Afolabi Fasanu, SAN, Kazeem Gbadamosi, SAN, and Adebayo Ojo, SAN, represented him.
In their judgment read by Justice Gabriel Kolawole, which was adopted by Justices Yargata Nimpar and B. F. Suberu, the three-man panel of judges agreed with the decision of the trial court that the procedure for the removal of Mr Olaniyan as former Deputy Governor of Oyo state, “is primarily the internal affairs of the Oyo State House of Assembly.”
The House of Assembly and its Clerk had argued that: “It is trite law that the court is not to be subjected to the indignity of the deletion or striking down of any of its parts. We pray Your Lordships to reject the present invitation to introduce a dichotomy between voice votes and other systems of voting into the 1st respondent’s rules of procedure and by implication to the grundnorm, that is, the 1999 Constitution (As Amended)”.
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