A former Senior Special Executive Assistant to ex-Governor
Rashidi Ladoja of Oyo State, Mr. Adewale Atanda, narrated on Thursday how the
ex-governor purchased 22 cars for lawmakers in the state to avoid being
impeached in 2005.
Atanda said out of the 22 cars that the governor purchased
it was only 14 that he, however, gave out because that was the number of
lawmakers whose loyalty he was eventually able to secure out of the 22 he
required to stop his impeachment.
Atanda explained that the Oyo State House of Assembly had 32
lawmakers and for Ladoja to have stopped his impeachment he needed the votes of
22 lawmakers, which was why he bought 22 cars.
The rest of the cars, he said, were shared among Ladoja’s
family members.
Atanda appeared on Thursday as a prosecution witness before
Justice Mohamed Idris of the Federal High Court in Lagos, where his former
principal, Ladoja, is answering charges of an alleged N4.7bn fraud.
Ladoja is standing trial alongside, Waheed Akanbi, who
served Oyo State under his administration as the Commissioner for Finance.
The ex-governor and the ex-commissioner were last December
arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on eight counts
before Justice Idris.
They had pleaded not guilty to the charges pressed against
them and in a bid to prove its case, the EFCC on Thursday brought Atanda in as
its second witness.
Led in evidence by the EFCC prosecutor, Mr. Oluwafemi
Olabisi, Atanda, who claimed to have met Ladoja back in 2000 when he (Atanda)
was vying for a senatorial seat on the platform of the same political party
that Ladoja was then running for Oyo State governor, gave a detailed narration
of how the administration of Ladoja ran into trouble after he had become a
governor.
“Well, I don’t know exactly how it started but it appeared
as if there was a rift between members of the Oyo State House of Assembly on
one hand, some political actors in the state, like Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu (late)
and Senator Ladoja, and some other external influences from Abuja at the
material time. Very many attempts were made to remove Senator Ladoja from
office; various petitions were written and at the end of the day, an
impeachment process was set in motion.
“Oyo State has about 32 members of the House of Assembly and
to successfully impeach the governor, it would require two-thirds majority
support of the members of the House of Assembly. That will be about 22 members.
“In order to secure the loyalty of these 22 members of the
House certain promises were made by different political actors. One of such was
that loyal members would be given vehicles.
“In the course of all these, I had discussion with Senator
Ladoja and explained to him that it was important that these promises be kept.
At the material time, it was rather impossible to buy these vehicles because
they were not included in the budget for the year, so, we started looking for
alternative ways to accommodate the request,” Atanda said.
Atanda said he eventually obtained a loan of N80m from Wema
Bank with his personal assets to assist Ladoja, who was his political
associate.
“The vehicles were bought and collected from the various
dealers by the drivers of the Oyo State Government and delivered to the
Government House in Ibadan. In spite of this, I think, by December 2005, the
governor was impeached from office.”
He said after he was impeached, Ladoja and his allies,
including the 14 lawmakers loyal to him fled and regrouped in Lagos, where
Ladoja continued to take responsibility for the welfare of the lawmakers, who
demanded to be paid a monthly income of N1m each after their salaries and
allowances had been stopped.
He added that Ladoja also assembled a team of lawyers, who
demanded a fee of N370m to challenge the impeachment up to the Supreme Court.
Justice Idris has adjourned till March 27, 2017 for Atanda
to continue his testimony.
Culled from PUNCH
