Chairman of the committee on review of sales of Kwara State government properties from 1999 to 2019, Senator Suleiman Makanjuola Ajadi, has said that his committee never indicted Justice Orilonise or anyone in the course of its assignment.
Reacting to the insinuation that his committee indicted retired Justice Orilonise in its report in a petition by the Kwara Agenda, Senator Ajadi, said the committee was on a fact-finding mission and had no power to indict and therefore did not indict anyone including Justice Orilonise.
“What the committee did was to take stock of all Kwara State government’s properties that were disposed of or bought within the period under review.
“The committee also identified beneficiaries of such sale, and how much was paid by the individual beneficiaries,” the chairman stated.
He said, “by its recommendations, all government quarters allocated to judges of the Kwara State judiciary, were to be left to the beneficiaries because the committee found that such quarters were lawfully allocated to and acquired by these judges.”
According to him, the exception to the recommendations was the sale of a government chalet to a judge (not Orilonise) which the committee recommended should be reversed and another quarter given to the said judge, because the chalets were not meant to be sold.
Senator Ajadi explained that “No 8 Trinity School road, GRA, Ilorin, is the quarters occupied by retired Justice Orilonise while in service.
“He is entitled to have the same quarter allocated to them on retirement just like his brother judges had their own quarters allocated upon retirement.
“Therefore, it was not out of place that our committee ascribed the quarters to him in our report because he is ordinarily the person entitled to be in possession of it.
“There is, however, nowhere the panel indicted the said judge or any judge at all,” he added.
The committee chairman also dismissed claims by Kwara Agenda that one of its recommendations which recommended that a new structure behind retired Justice Orilonise’s quarters on Peter Olorunnishola street, Ilorin, was an indictment on the judge.
“Far from that, a call for an investigation is never an indictment of any person,” he declared.
Senator Ajadi advised Kwara Agenda and indeed anyone with any issue to feel free to take such matters to the commission of Inquiry which has since called for memoranda from members of the public.
“That is a more decent and patriotic effort instead of what appears like a contrived attempt to malign an innocent person in a baseless attempt to discredit the panel,” the chairman stated.
