The Ekiti Impeachment Saga and the Law
For about a month now, the governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Ayodele Fayose has been fighting the battle of his life to save his governorship mandate. The 19 APC lawmakers in the House of Assembly have vowed to impeach him if that will be their final act before the House is dissolved on May 29th 2015. Fayose has relied on the security forces and some loyal citizens to ward off the lawmakers from carrying out their avowed act. So far, the Ekiti State House of Assembly has been under lock and key. The Fayose camp are of the view that the 19 APC lawmakers can only succeed in impeaching Fayose if they can gain access into the Assembly complex. They are of the opinion that, any proceeding outside the chambers of the House will be illegal. They are wrong! First, the act of barricading the Assembly complex by the security forces is an act of illegality of the highest order. The executive, the legislature and the judiciary are independent arms of government and one shall not usurp the powers of the other- see OJUKWU v MILITARY GOVERNOR OF LAGOS STATE (1986) 1 NWLR ( Pt.18) 621. No arm of the government has the power to stop the legislature from carrying out its legitimate and constitutional function. The law is that one cannot seek any relief or remedy on the ground of any illegal act of his. In other words, if the Omirin led Ekiti State House of Assembly decides to sit elsewhere asides from the State House of Assembly to impeach the governor, the governor cannot claim that such an impeachment is illegal simply because the House did not sit in the chambers of the Assembly complex. That would amount to relying on the ground of illegal closure of the Assembly by the police to gain judicial advantage which is frowned at by the law. In Ojukwu’s case, the Supreme Court held that “to use force to effect an act and while under the marshal of that force, seek the court’s equity, is an attempt to infuse timidity into the court and operate a sabotage of the cherished rule of law. It must never be.” In other words, Mr. Ayodele Fayose cannot rely on the marshal of this brute force currently been exercised by the police to argue that his impeachment was illegal.
Let it be noted clearly that the law is not that the House of Assembly must sit and conduct its proceedings inside the chambers of the Assembly. Such a notion is erroneous. Let us correct this notion by making an appraisal of the case of INAKOJU v ADELEKE (2007) 4 NWLR (PT.1025) 427 from where the wrong notion arose. In this case, 18 members of the 32 members of the Oyo State House of Assembly opposed to the governor, sat at a hotel called D’Rovans Hotel from where they raised impeachment offences against the governor without the participation of the principal members of the House – that is, the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker. All said and done, the 18 factional members of the House sat and impeached Rasheed Ladoja, the governor. At the Supreme Court, the court held that the impeachment was illegal, null and void on the following grounds.
1. That the 18 members of the Oyo State House of Assembly do not constitute 2/3 of the House required by the constitution.
2. That the proceeding held without the participation of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the House.
The Supreme Court did not say that the sitting at the D’Rovans Hotel was illegal simpliciter. The sitting at the D’Rovans Hotel was illegal because the 18 members of the House who sat there did not constitute 2/3 of the House and because the proceedings took place without the participation of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker who are principal members of the House. This clarification is important because of the long held wrong notion that any sitting of the legislature outside the designated place of its business is illegal. Further, governor Fayose argued that Omirin has been impeached as the Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly. Still in the Inakoju’s case reported as ADELEKE v OYO STATE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY (2006) 16 NWLR (pt.1006) 608, the court of Appeal held that any removal of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the House without complying with the constitutional provision is illegal, null and void. And in law, if an act is void, it is void ab initio – UAC v MACFOY (1961) 3 ALL ER 1119 at 1172. Can the 9 PDP members of the Ekiti State House of Assembly that impeached the Speaker constitute 2/3 of the House? In the eyes of the law, for the purpose of conducting any proceedings of the House or impeaching Mr. Ayodele Fayose, Omirin remains the Speaker of the House. If the executive using the security forces make it impossible for the House to sit in its chambers at the Assembly complex, the House can sit anywhere to conduct its legitimate business as long as it forms a quorum with the participation of the principal members of the House. The law is not otherwise.
Elemuo, a lawyer wrote from Port Harcourt.