Tinubu Helped Ladoja Secure Court Victory After Impeachment – Fashola

Minister of Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola has revealed how the Presidential Candidate of the All Progressives Congress Asiwaju Bola Tinubu helped former Oyo State Governor Rasheed Ladoja win in court after he was impeached from office.

Ladoja was impeached by 18 members of the Oyo State House of Assembly January 2006, but was returned back to office 11 months later after the Supreme Court ruled that the impeachment was illegal.

While appearing on Instagram live session with media personality, Morayo Afolabi-Brown, the former Lagos State governor who was then chief of staff to Tinubu revealed that Ladoja came to Lagos to seek Tinubu’s help after he was removed from office.

Fashola further revealed that Tinubu instructed him to assemble a team of lawyers who prepared the court document that was filed in court used to secure victory for Ladoja despite being an opposition governor at that time.

He said, “When Governor Ladoja was removed as governor in Ibadan by an apparently illegal impeachment process, it was to Lagos that he came.

“On Sundays, I used to play football and Sundays were like my day off when he would not call me. I remember my phone rang after playing on Sunday, and it was the ADC and he said, ‘the boss wants to speak with you’. When he came on, he said, ‘Tunde, I’m sorry, I know this is your day off, but I need you. Yemi (the current vice president) was in the RCCG camp’. He said, ‘Just bring your constitution, bring your law books, I need you to research something for me.’

“When I got there, what he said to me was, ‘Are we just going to fold our hands and let a governor in Nigeria be impeached and nothing would happen?’ And I said but he was in opposition, and he said ‘it doesn’t matter, what can we do, call your colleagues?’ And it was in his house in that Bourdillon that a group of us lawyers sat down, prepared the court document, I keep the name of the lawyer who went to file it with security we gave him at 4am to go to Ibadan from 11 in the morning. And it was that case that went all the way to the Supreme Court and Ladoja was returned back to office before he finally lost in the reelection.”

Fashola added that Tinubu has continued to just like he did then, fight the course of the helpless to ensure that the get the best and are not cheated.

“That wasn’t his course, that was an opposition governor, but that is the man, the champion for oppressed people. So when some people are trying to rewrite history and say he is fighting Buhari, no he is emphatising with people who can’t money, he is emphatising with people who need fuel. These are fights he has spent all his life fighting and they are more,” Fashola added.