Ekiti panel rejects Fayemi’s application to stay proceedings

* Ex-governor: I’ll appeal ruling The Judicial Commission of Enquiry investigating the finances of Ekiti State between October 2010 and October 2014 has rejected an application by former Governor Kayode Fayemi to stay proceedings. The panel also refused a similar application by former Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Dapo Kolawole, that he be excused from appearing and giving evidence on the management of finances. Fayemi, through his counsel, Chief Rafiu Balogun, argued the application that he be excused from appearing before the panel during the pendency of three cases he filed as touching on issues before the seven-member jury. Fayemi’s counsel formulated 14 issues for determination while counsel to the panel, Mr. Sunday Bamise, formulated four issues for determination in countering the former governor’s application. Ruling on the application, the Commission Chairman, Justice Silas Oyewole, held that the cases filed by Fayemi at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in Abuja and the Federal High Court in Ado-Ekiti could not stop the panel from continuing its assignment. The panel chairman held that the case at the FCT High Court is a libel suit Fayemi filed against Fayose’s media aide, Lere Olayinka and House of Assembly member Samuel Omotoso, who he said were sued in their private capacity. He also ruled that the reliefs sought by the ex-governor at the Federal High Court in Ado-Ekiti, in which he sued the House of Assembly for empowering the governor to set up the panel, cannot stop its proceedings. Justice Oyewole said issues before the Ado-Ekiti Federal High Court were outside the terms of reference of the panel, adding: “It is unfortunate that the applicant (Fayemi) equated Ekiti State House of Assembly with the Ekiti State government.” The panel chairman ruled that the Constitution empowers the Assembly to issue a warrant of arrest to compel the appearance of anyone summoned, while the governor also has the power to set up the panel outside the resolution of the Assembly. He also held that the third suit Fayemi filed at the Ekiti State High Court to stop the panel from sitting was done after its sitting had begun. According to him, it is only the governor or a valid order of the court that can stop the panel from continuing with its proceedings. Justice Oyewole noted that Fayemi failed to secure any order to stop the panel from its assignment. The panel chairman described Fayemi’s application as an “abuse of the proceedings of the commission”, adding that “the application is hereby refused and the applicant is not excused from appearing before the panel”. In a separate ruling, the panel also rejected Kolawole’s application on the basis that it is “an abuse of its proceedings and a calculated attempt to waste the time of the commission”. It urged the former commissioner to appear before it to give evidence. But Fayemi rejected the decision. His lawyer said the former governor would challenge the summons in court. Balogun, who was not at the sitting when the ruling was delivered, said the verdict was not determined according to a settled law. The lawyer said he had received instructions from his clients to proceed to the High Court to have the ruling quashed. He said: “We are not satisfied with the ruling because it was not determined according to law. It was against the principle of settled law. “The decision contradicts the settled principle of law, as decided by the apex court and the Court of Appeal on the principle of subjudice and lis pendes. “We are setting the machinery in motion to carry out the instruction of our clients to that effect.”]]>