Oloyede Betrayed Judicial Conduct – Osun Speaker

Speaker, State of Osun House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Najeem Salaam has asserted that the embattled Justice Folahanmi Oloyede has betrayed the oath of her office, saying she has lost her worth to be a judge in the temple of justice in Osun.

Speaker Salaam stressed that the violation of processes and procedure as spelt out by the constitution and judicial code of conduct through her partisan and emotional disposition on the allegations raised against the government she is serving has shown her as unfit for the bench.

Besides, the house in a motion of 25 against one, as moved by the Majority leader, Mr. Timothy Owoeye and seconded by Mr. Abdulahi Ibrahim representing Iwo State Constituency has adopted the recommendations of the seven man committee headed by Mr. Akintunde Adegboye which dismissed the petition and recommended the petitioner for sanction through the State Judicial Service Commission.

Among the adopted recommendations, the embattled Judge was found wanting of abandoning the petition for non-appearance, lack of evidence, premising her petition on rumors and hearsay.

Explaining why he allowed the petition to sail through, the Speaker noted that the state parliament under his watch elected to look Into to the petition not to gag Oloyede freedom of expression in accordance with sections 128 and 129 of the constitution which empowered the legislature to investigate any public petition forwarded to the house, saying the issue of impeachment raised in the petition was a mere opinion of the petitioner not the position of the law.

Speaker Salaam reiterated that the parliament was conscious of the letter and the spirit of section 188 raised by some lawyers, but pointed out that a petition raised by the judicial officer could not have been substituted for the position of the one-third of the assembly members capable of I intimating impeachment article.

He said, “we appreciate the views of the two legal luminaries who ventilated their opinions on the conduct of Justice Oloyede and the move of the parliament to tolerate the petition at all, but having found no precedence for the action of the Judge, the Parliament under me chose to set up the committee to investigate the content of the petition, but we are surprised that the Judge lost the courage to come forward to defend the allegations leveled against the duo of the governor and his deputy; suggesting that she is not worth her onion. It shows that if an individual drags the government to her court, the ruling could be preempt.”

In another development, Speaker further said he would soon hold talk with the board of Civil Service Commission, the Chams consultancy in charge of workers’ documents, Head of Service and labour leaders on the issue of ghost workers and regime of wage payment with a view to debriefing them.

Speaking at the plenary, Speaker Salaam said the parliament would be guided on its intervention on the issue of delayed salaries, government/workers’ dispute and the sustainability of the wage regime and other related issues.

He then lauded the labour leaders for coming to the negotiation table, saying that the culture of negotiating with strike at every occasion should be reviewed for collective good.