Court summons Ogun Assembly over OPIC ex-MD’s suit

Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, Lagos, yesterday, summoned Ogun State House of Assembly to show cause why it should not grant reliefs sought by a former Managing Director of the Ogun Property Investment Corporation (OPIC), Mr. Babajide Odusola, against it.

The Assembly, during its plenary on September 21, 2012, had adopted the report of its Committee on Anti-Corruption and Public Accounts, which claimed to have investigated the finances of OPIC and huge sums of money were missing from OPIC accounts.

Odusolu had filed a suit before the court against the Inspector-General of Police, the Assistant Inspector-General of Police in charge of Zone 2, the Commissioner of Police in Ogun State, the Ogun State House of Assembly and the Attorney-General of the state as respondents.

In the suit filed on his behalf by Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN), Odusolu sought declarations that the proceedings of the Assembly and the report of the committee, which it purportedly adopted, constitute an infringement on his fundamental rights to a fair hearing, that Ogun State House of Assembly lacks the competence to investigate an alleged crime, that the chairman of the committee that allegedly investigated OPIC funds was an interested party, who served together with Odusolu in the previous administration and even inspected some OPIC projects, which he now claimed have not been executed.

He also sought an order of injunction to restrain the Assembly from deploying the report to initiate any criminal complaint against him before the police and to restrain the police from acting on the said report pending the hearing and final determination of the suit in court.

In the 40-paragraph affidavit deposed to by Odusolu, he traced the series of projects executed by OPIC, that the accounts of OPIC have been audited by professionals and no fund was missing at all.

He stated further that the committee and some Assembly members were persecuting him.