By Barr. Rotimi John Adeyenuwo,the newly elected and sworn-in Ife Central Local Government Council,Ile-Ife in Osun State
Reading through the article emanating from Mogaji Kola Olabisi,the Osun State APC Director of Media and Information on behalf of himself,and the entire Osun State Chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC) without reacting to debunk all the tissues of lies contained therein will not be good enough.
If the rank and file of APC in Osun State think they can use media activism or propaganda to change the true position of law regarding self created political impasse in the local governments councils in Osun State,you are just hallucinating. That is your figment of your own imagination which has no basis in law.
The government of Osun State under the able leadership of Asiwaju Ademola Jackson Nurudeen Adeleke and PDP as the ruling political party in the state will go by way of rule of law to bring the situation to normalcy. We have been demonstrating to the whole world,and we will continue in that stride that we are law abiding indigenes of Osun State and by extension,citizen of Nigeria.
If anybody is painting the converse to mislead people in the state,that person is just wasting his time.
Apart from being a lawyer,a sound student of logic can easily make inference that from the heading of the article down the premises adduced to support their claim are false.
Therefore the conclusion of the argument which they want people to believe cannot be true. That is the basic principle of logic.
Philosophy students in Part 2 of their learning can attest to.
(False + False = The conclusion that will be False).
Let me debunk APC’s line of argument seriatim in the following order for clarity:
(1) If the Council Chairmen and Councillors elected on the 22nd day of February,2025 are termed as illegal,what is the parameter APC is using to determine its illegality?
This is an election the OSIEC conducted,adhering strictly to the guidelines contained in the Electoral Act as amended in 2022.
This is an election APC participated in by attending OSIEC meetings,purchased nomination forms and decided to withdraw its participation in the election barely 3 weeks to that election,when it was obvious to them that they cannot win the election seeing the campaign strategies of PDP in preparation for the local government election.
When Kola Olabisi of APC is now referring the products of that valid election as impostors,is he saying the truth? Capital NO!
That is misuse of language. The Councils Chairmen elected in Osun in February this year are authentic backed by law. The cannot be decimated or rubbished by derogatory semantics of the APC Media Director,Kola Olabisi.
If APC had participated in that election,they probably would have been preparing to go to the Election Tribunal by now. But unfortunately they lack locus standi to challenge the conduct of the election.
Since there is no court order or judgement of competent court of jurisdiction that stoped the election before 22nd February,2025,the elected Chairmen and Councillors cannot be derogatorily referred to ss impostors. In the face of law,they are the authentic Chairmen of their various councils in Osun state who are to take over their respective local governments councils as soon as the courts before which the subject matters are pending reel their judgements evacuate the Yes ot No APC Chairmen of illegal occupation of the council premises.
(2) The letter that Osun State government forwarded to the Attorney General of the Federation and the Minister of Justice Chief Lateef Fabemi,the Accountant General of the Federation,Shamsudeen Babatunde Ogunjimi and the Central Bank Governor,Yemi Cardoso which the Press Release under reference termed as shameful letter is the appropriate letter in this circumstances to clear the confusion APC members have thrown in the air for the past 3 weeks,capable of threatening the peace,law and order of Osun State if not to say we have a level headed governor in the state,Asiwaju Ademola Jackson Nurudeen Adeleke applied local intelligence and civility to stem down action political rascality engaged by member of APC in Osun State.
The letters written to the Public Officers mentioned above are accompanied by the various judgements relating to the Yes or No election that had been nullified in a suit instituted by the APP V. APC in 2022 on the basis of which the illegal Chairmen of councils were sacked in the first instance,the appeal they abandoned in the same Court of Appeal in Akure on thesame subject matter before it was thrown out for lack of diligent prosecution and the lastly, the Court of Appeal judgement instituted by APC against PDP where they brought 4 issues for determination.
If in the Court of Appeal,Akure resolved 2 issues against PDP in that suit regarding speculative nature of their suit before the lower court that earlier delivered judgement on that matter,and referred to the other 2 issues as “academic exercise”,a fresh graduate just admitted to the Nigerian Law School will know that such issues lack consequential effect.
That APC are trying to import their selfish intent and interest into the judgement through self-help and brigandage as if they have justiciable cause action is very strange to law. There is standard procedure for the enforcement of court’s judgement if there is consequential order made by the court. In the present situation nothing of such is happening.
That the Attorney General of the Federation and the Inspector General of Police had earlier on advised Osun State government not to hold local government election was to forestall the likelihood of breakdown of law and order. Their advisory role is persuasive and not mandatory to follow.
Thank God the election was held under congenial peaceful condition without violence or breakdown of law.
So,sending letters to these public officers with all the judgements from the various cadre of courts is to afford them a clear understanding of the matter and direct the sacked local governments Chairmen of 2022 to vacate their illegal occupation of the councils premises in Osun State is the only peaceful and legal way.
The community reading of these judgement will give AGF untainted overview of what is going on in Osun about legal malfeances of APC in the state.
(3) That there is nothing to place on record as claimed by Kola Olabisi about the action taken by the Secretary to State Government, Chief Teslim Igbalaye to lay the bare fact before the AGF and others is not a misplaced priority as APC will want unsuspected reading public to believe. Chief Teslim Igbalaye is doing his own job as the Scribe of the government to put the record straight. Is there anything wrong with that?
Describing the newly elected local government Chairmen in which l am one of them is a reckless statement that can proceeds from the mouth of unlearned fellow of Kola Olabisi stuff
(4) The vacancy that exist in the local government of Osun State since November 2022 paved the way for election into those councils on February 22nd,2025 as directed by the Supreme Court on the financial autonomy of the 774 local government in Nigeria.
Must that of Osun State be different? That is not possible.
The judgement of Court of Appeal dated February 20,2025 did not reinstate the annuled Yes or No election of APC Chairmen in 2022. Your party APC is just dissipating energy unnecessarily on this matter.
It is still tenable if you are being deceived by a fellow human being. But if someone is deceiving himself or herself in falsehood,something is wrong somewhere. Members of APC in Osun should come back to their senses and let rule of law reign in the state.
(5) The fact APC members did not advert their minds to is that a judgement of the court must not be ambiguous and misleading.
If in APC Encyclopedia the phrase,the two issues the Court of Appeal did not resolve in the suit brought before it but tagged as “academic exercise” is now forming their fulcrum of reinstatement,it means they are bereft of reasonable ideas. Like l previously mentioned earlier,the two issues are not touched,therefore rendering it as inconsequential,and of no effect simple simplicita.
When has professional advice of AGF and that of IGP have the force of law?
PDP cannot be bound by that advisory commentary so to speak.
(6) The pleading of APC to the Attorney General of the Federation,Accountant General of the Federation and the Governor of the Central Bank to ignore official letter written to them by the government of Osun State cannot be taken serious. We are talking of inter-governmental relation,Kola Olabisi is bringing in extraneous factor of partisanship.
Where will that one find a space?
It is a waste of time.
All the trio public officers been urged by APC are professionals in their calling. They will treat the issue before them using the documentary evidences submitted to each of them for the positive consideration of the matter as brought by the government of Osun State.
If PDP is indeed the judgement debtor as pronounced by APC in the Court of Appeal case,the higher court would have said it categorically without any form of equivocation.
Let me conclude my REJOINDER by saying that the backdoor intrigues being played by APC to hoodwink the AGF and others to tilt the favourable consideration towards them cannot work.
The whole world is watching the happenstance in Osun political plane. The professionals being urged by APC members will not want the colouration of partisanship to stain their integrity and credibility built over the years.
