By Ayodele Oni
Despite having judgements of the lower and appellate Courts in their favour, the four suspended members of Ondo State House of Assembly were still locked out of the parliament building on Thursday.
The leadership of the House insisted that they would remain outside until they were able to produce hard copies of the court judgement which ordered their reinstatement.
Chairman, house committee on information, Mr Gbenga Omole maintained that the suspended lawmakers’ coming to the House without the copy of the judgement was mischievous and embarrassing.
“As I am speaking with you we only read the judgment on the social media we have not got the hard copy of the judgment. When they were coming they failed to bring the copy of the judgment along. But because they are mischievous, that is why they didn’t bring the copy of judgment along, Omole explained .
It was learnt that security men at the gate of the Assembly, acting on the orders of the leadership, prevented the four Lawmakers from entering the assembly’s premises.
The Appeal Court sitting in Akure, the state capital , on Wednesday upheld the judgement of the state High Court which ordered the Assembly to reinstate the embattle lawmakers and paid them all their entitlements .
Those affected include the Deputy Speaker Mr Iroju Ogundeji, Mrs Favour Tomomewo and Mr Wale Williams, are members of the ruling All Progressives Congress.
They were earlier suspended by the leadership of the House over alleged gross misconduct but the courts ( both High Court and the Appeal Court) had dismissed that action of the Assembly leadership, declaring it illegal.
Their suspension came at the peak of a botched move by the assembly to impeach the deputy governor, Mr Agboola Ajayi after he defected to the opposition People’s Democratic Party, (PDP).
Ajayi later contested along his boss in the October 10 Governorship Election on the ticket of the Zenith Labour Party, (ZLP) and came a distance third in the election.
Reacting to the action of the house, Deputy Speaker, Ogundeji, said the Assembly leadership was contemptous for preventing them from performing their legislative duties, despite a court judgement.
According to him,, ” Yesterday ( Wednesday), the appellate court ruled that the motion brought before it concerning our suspension was frivolous and ordered that we should be reinstated to do our legislative duties immediately without hindrance, that is why we were here but on getting here ( Assembly) we saw that everywhere was locked and we were not allowed to enter.”
