The Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Adewale Egbedun is in the eye of the storm again after he reportedly ordered his aides to beat up a lawyer, Yusuf Muideen Adeshina while he watched. The legal practitioner who was allegedly brutalised is from Osun State.
The victim said he has previously represented the Speaker as a Counsel in his election petition case at both the Election Petition Tribunal and the Appeal Court while also risking his life in the process.
Mr. Yusuf Adeshina, in an online post said, “the kind of beating I received from Osun State House of Assembly Speaker’s aides today under his supervision because I pointed a finger at Ordinary Speaker was similar to OAU maximum shishi. I couldn’t see well for hours until the intervention of a Specialist.”
“I was thoroughly dealt with by the aides of someone I once represented and risked my life for in an Election Petition Tribunal and Appeal Court”, Adeshina lamented.
The Osun lawyer went on to state that his torture and organised beating on the directives of Hon. Egbedun must be addressed by the Nigerian Bar Association whom he has reported the matter to.
“Egbedun should know or ask his lawyers if he has any immunity to do what he did to yesterday”, Adeshina went on to say.
“If yes, he can go scot free but if the answer is negative, the battle line has been drawn. If Egbedun can moderate the beating of a legal practitioner in a broad daylight, I wonder the fate of the people who couldn’t voice out, this man would have oppressed.
“My offence against Egbedun and his thugs was that I pointed finger at Egbedun in expressing myself to the man who many think is a honorable but otherwise in action and characters”, Adeshina lamented.
The 39-year old Osun Speaker has been accused of lawlessness and exhibiting traits of a power drunk leader who believes in the use of physical force to achieve his aim. This latest incident occurred when the lawyer, Yusuf Adeshina was in the process of executing an order of court with some policemen and bailiffs to eject some people from a portion of land around NUJ Press Centre, after the Technical College in Osogbo.
Podium Reporters gathered that those affected by the court order, refused to obey the directives of the officials and instead called the speaker on phone, who showed up at the scene to stop the execution of the order.
Meanwhile, the Osogbo branch of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) , through its Chairman, Yemi Abiona has condemned the action of the speaker describing its as a major impunity.
“It is an assault on the judiciary, we are going to do everything possible to make sure that the right of our members and integrity of court is maintained, we cant be folding our arms and watch this recklessness and abuse of power”, the NBA chairman said.