Culled From Ibrahim Lawal Esq. – Chairman, Ibadan BAR
On the strength of a judgment which the PDP Government got from the Federal High Court, Osogbo, the Governor of Osun dissolved a democratically elected Local Government chairmen and councillors.
The affected chairmen and Councillors approached the Court of Appeal for redress and the Court of Appeal ruled that the judgment through which those officers were dissolved had no foundation and therefore strike out the case for not disclosing reasonable cause of action.
The logical Implication is that there is no power to dissolve any democratically elected local government officials and what was done was done malafide.
The argument by some “putative lawyers” that the court did not specifically ordered the removed officers to go back to office is purile as it is elementary law that if a court has decided that it has no jurisdiction on a matter and decline jurisdiction, the Court will not consider any other reliefs stated in the process as court does nothing in vain.
The totality of what I am saying is that the Court of Appeal by its decision had gone back to what the situation was before the Federal High Court judgment, which is the elected Chairmen and Councillors in all the local Government in Osun State and any other interpretation apart from this is nothing but an exercise in futility.
Rather than resort to threat and violence, the Osun State Governor should eat a humble pie and accommodate those officers pending when their time will lapse.
