People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in Ekiti State has petitioned the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Ayodeji Daramola, following the re-assigning of the case between the state governor, Mr. Ayo Fayose and a group, the E-11, to the same judge, Justice Segun Ogunyemi, who had previously withdrawn from the same case.
The state chairman of the party, Chief Idowu Faleye, in a petition signed on Wednesday, November 5, 2014 and addressed to Justice Daramola, the PDP alleged the likelihood that the judge may be biased in the course of legal processes.
In the petition, the party also noted that going by manner in which the matter was previously abandoned, the governor, Mr Ayo Fayose and the party, who are the defendants in the suit may not likely get justice.
“We are surprised; however, to be informed that the same judge, Justice Olusegun Ogunyemi had resumed sitting over the same case he had voluntarily withdrawn from.
“When we probed why the same judge, whose action caused unmitigated crisis in the state prior to the swearing in of the new governor of the state and a party in the case, we were informed that the National Judicial Commission, NJC, directed him to resume sitting over the case.
“However, our investigation at the NJC proved to the contrary. Our source at the NJC asked a rhetorical question of when the NJC has become the assigning judge of cases pending before a state high court,” he stated.
Recall that the E-11’s case was that Governor Ayo Fayose should not have participated in the Ekiti election because he allegedly lied in his form.
