Governor Willie Obiano, Commissioner of Police, Garba Umar, and others have been slammed with a lawsuit by the factional Speaker of Anambra State House of Assembly, Hon Ikem Uzoezie, and his pro-impeachment colleagues.
Disclosing this to journalists in Awka, the factional Speaker said nothing would revert the impeachment of Maduagwu as was effected on November 13, 2018, by no fewer than twenty-five out of the thirty lawmakers of the House.
He said the lawsuit against the police commissioner and Obiano would commence on Monday (today), adding that the police is well aware of the illegality of its action.
Uzoezie said: “We’ve drawn the attention of the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, and t Anambra CP to the Legislative Activities Act 2017 that was assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari, telling them that their action is unconstitutional.
“By Monday (today) our processes will be in court. We have briefed our lawyers on what to do. On Monday, both the police and the executive will meet us in court.
“We only require basic police presence to safeguard government property and not sealing off of our premises and restricting our members of staff from having access to their offices and workplaces which we find so disheartening at this point in time.”
While insisting that the police action is an attack on the institution of democracy and that there is a jail term to it, if they so persist to seal the complex, the factional Speaker described the sealing of the Assembly by the police on the instructions of the state government as “executive recklessness and madness”.
He stressed that it is time for lawmakers in the state to be liberated from the status of stooges to the executive arm.
Uzoezie further called on the people of the state to call the police, the governor and his aides to order in the meddlesomeness in the Assembly, noting that nothing would make the impeached Speaker to return to office.
He added: “This is third and last time. Two times, the governor has intervened. No, she has been impeached. There is no going back; no further remedy or intervention. Like the Bible says, what’s written is written. The only thing left to her now is to manage her remaining days in the Assembly as a member.”
But Maduagwu had tagged her impeachment as a “bundle of illegality” that did not meet the constitutional requirements.
While insisting that she remained the Speaker, she said: “Nobody can remove me because I did not commit any offence.”
News Express reports that Madunagwu was impeached for alleged incompetence, financial impropriety and gross misconduct.
Source News Express