The sitting of a seven-man committee set up to look into the petition filed by Justice Folahanmi Oloyede, indicting the Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, on account of financial recklessness suffered a setback on Tuesday, as the petitioner failed to appear before the committee for defence.

After Justice Oloyede filed the petition, the committee asked the petitioner, ‎who is a serving Judge in the State, to appear before it with facts backing the petition sent to the State House of Assembly on June 19.

In the petition, Justice Oloyede had accused the Governor and his Deputy, Titilayo Tomori-Laoye, of mismanaging the state’s funds and therefore called for their Impeachment.

The day had started with heavy presence of security personnel at the entrance of the Osun State House of Assembly on Wednesday in expectation that the sitting will hold.

It was not a day for the usual legislators’ Plenary Session, as the gate to the House of Assembly was shut and everyone had to be screened before going in.

‎But when the committee commenced sitting, the petitioner did not appear instead she sent in representatives, a development that led to a mild drama at the venue, which forced the committee into a closed-door meeting with the representatives of the petitioner.

After the meeting, a representative of the petitioner, Lanre Ogunlesi, told reporters that the petitioner could only appear before the panel with her defence if the response of the respondent was given to the petitioner.

Legal experts, who spoke to Channels Television, commented on the representatives views.

They said the committee, headed by Akintunde Adegboye, was mandated by law to forward the respondent’s answer to the petitioner

The committee has only two days left to make the two weeks deadline given to it to submit its report to the State House of Assembly‎.

However, there have been allegations and counter-allegations from various quarters on the credibility of the committee set up comprising of only lawmakers that are members of the All Progressives Congress in the House.

Governor Aregbesola is one of the governors owing State workers salary across Nigeria, which the Governors had blamed on the reduced allocation from the FederationAccount, but an economist, Bismarck Rewane, said the development was as a result of financial recklessness by some Governors. (Channels TV)

*Photo shows Aregbesola