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JUNE 18, 2007 VOL. 21, NO. 10

The Wrong Foot

**Adedibu**

The intrigues in Oyo State politics continue with the dissolution of the four-day old local government executives by the newly elected governor, Adebayo Alao-Akala, minutes after he was sworn-in
By Edward Dibiana
While performing his last major official duty as governor of Oyo State, on Friday, May 25, 2007, Rasheed Ladoja, found time to reflect on the misfortune of the state in the past four years, as he said: “Our state needs prayers of deliverance to grow beyond the 1962/63 saga. We need prayers for peace to reign in our state, may God answer us. I will continue to pray for you, I will continue to pray for our state.”
Indeed, given the chain of political crises and the orgy of violence that have bedevilled the state in the past three years, Oyo State sure needs prayers to save it from the whims of agents of violence and absurd politics.
Ladoja made that statement in Ibadan, the state capital while inaugurating 33 local government chairmen who had emerged victorious in a controversial local government polls that was conducted 24 hours earlier by his administration that was barely three days shy from expiration.
The People's Democratic Party (PDP) in the state had refused to take part in the election and the result of the boycott was the almost clean sweep of the polls by the rival Action Congress (AC), which won 26 out of the 33 local councils, while the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) won seven.
While Ladoja was celebrating the ‘successful’ conduct of the polls which was almost marred by violence having recorded seven casualties due to the bitter rivalry between his supporters and those of the Ibadan strongman, Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, his former deputy who was then a Governor-elect, Adebayo Alao Akala, vowed to upturn the election the moment he was sworn-in as governor. Akala kept his promise and made the dissolution of the 33 council leadership his first official pronouncement after taking his oath of office on Tuesday, May 29, even when experts say he lacks the legal power to undertake such an action.
Perhaps, Akala was only looking at the political gain and not the constitutional implication, in making such a pronouncement that was described as crude display of executive rascality by a lawyer, Princewill Akpakpan of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO).
In the place of the “sacked” local government chairmen, Akala appointed caretaker committees to oversee the affairs of the councils pending when another election would be conducted. Akala, remarkably, got the 18 Oyo State lawmakers who had in 2005 controversially “impeached” Ladoja – an action that was later upturned by the Supreme Court – to endorse the dissolution on the grounds that the election itself was an illegality being that there was an injunction against the conduct of the election before it was conducted.
But according to Adebayo Shittu, former Commissioner for Justice in Oyo State, there was no sustainable injunction against the Oyo State Independent Electoral Commission (OYSIEC), that would have stopped it from conducting the election. The Source’s finding indeed show that although the PDP actually got an injunction from a court presided over by Justice Iyabo Yerima, the case was later transferred to another judge after the Oyo State government petitioned the Chief Judge of the state, stating its fears over the ability of Justice Yerima to deliver an unbiased judgement,
That transfer of the case, according to Usoro Umoh, a Lagos-based lawyer who spoke to The Source, nullified the earlier injunction given by Justice Yerima. “In law, “ Umoh explained, “once a case is taken from a judge and given to another, all the interim orders become abated; they are no more sustainable, there are no longer binding. They go with the transfer, because the new judge has to start afresh.”
Explaining why the state government under Ladoja asked for the case to be transferred to another judge, the former Justice commissioner told a daily newspaper that, “They (PDP) went to court and got a very compromised interim injunction. Compromised in the sense that the case was given to a judge who has the notoriety of always working for PDP. Iyabo Yerima, the judge that sat on that case, has the notoriety of working for Adedibu. Whatever Adedibu wants is what she does. And she had a penchant of working against everything Ladoja stood for. For instance, she was the judge that attempted to review the judgement of the Supreme Court which restored Ladoja to power in 2006. Ordinarily, this woman based on that alone, should not be judge again in that state.”
Another grouse of the Akala administration in cancelling the election is that the OYSIEC did not include the PDP in the ballot paper for the local government election. The electoral body claimed that it left out PDP from the ballot paper because of the party’s refusal to participate in the polls.
But was that enough reason for the newly elected governor to annual the election? Legal experts do not think so. While a state governor is empowered to dissolve the local government administration at the expiration of its tenure, which is three years, Victor Nwaneri, a Lagos-based lawyer told The Source that Akala abused such power by his dissolution of the 33 local council executives by executive fiat. Although the lawyer believes that the speed with which the Ladoja administration conducted the election and inaugurated the winners, left much to be desired, the dissolution pronouncement by Akala further gives the intrigue a garb of political vendetta.
Akpakpan of the CLO also pointed out that the elaborate procedure for the conduct of local government council elections is regulated by section 106-123 of the Electoral Act 2006. The Act, according to the lawyer, “also establishes the constitution of Local Government Election Petition Tribunal to handle petitions arising from the propriety or otherwise of the conduct of such election. Under this provision, it is only the aggrieved parties who contested, or had interest in the contest of the election that can file a petition in the tribunal – meaning that only persons with requisite locus standi could file an election petition with consequential prayers.
“Alao-Akala is not an aggrieved party within the meaning of the provisions of the Electoral act and even if he were, the Electoral Petition Tribunal provides him an avenue to ventilate his grievances within a specified time frame. The governor does not have such powers to dissolve elected councils and set up caretaker committees in its place in contravention of the provisions of our constitution which make the local councils to be democratically guaranteed,” Akpakpan said.
The “sacked” local council chairmen have, however, filed a suit at the law court seeking redress to what appears to be an infringement on their political rights. Whatever becomes the outcome of the legal action would only add to the labyrinth of intrigues that Oyo State politics has become in recent times.
The storm further echoed last Wednesday, June 6 when Alao-Akala announced the removal of the state’s acting Chief Judge, Justice Olagoke Ige and appointed Justice Afolabi Adeniran as replacement.
Coming at a time when Justice Ige was reported to have come under intense pressure to facilitate the quashing of an indictment of corrupt enrichment slammed on Alao-Akala by the Ladoja administration, not a few eye brows are being raised concerning the latest development.
Justice Adeniran, who hails from Ogbomosho with Alao-Akala, had held the office before when the former deputy governor supplanted the former helmsman, Ladoja, following a controversial impeachment.
Violence and intimidation have become potent tools in the fight for supremacy among supporters of the key actors in Oyo State political turf. A few days ago, suspected thugs of Adedibu used that tool on an ANPP Legislator-elect at the inuaguration ceremony of the lawmakers. The lawmaker, Kayode Animasaun, was forcefully stripped of his cap and shoes at the event in the full glare of everyone at the arena. The humiliated Animasaun ran and prostrated before Adedibu, who was physically present, but the Ibadan strongman showed no concern to the frightened politician.
In January 2005, 18 out of the 33 members of the Oyo State House of Assembly who are loyalists of Alhaji Adedibu controversially announced the impeachment of Ladoja and elevated Akala, his deputy to the status of a governor.
Eleven months later, the Supreme Court voided the impeachment and re-installed Ladoja as governor of the state. During those 11 months, Ladoja, who recently decamped to the AC, lost favour with the PDP lords and that led to the emergence of Akala - Adedibu’s choice - as the standard bearer of the PDP in the last election which was won by the party.
Having lost out at the state level, Ladoja hurriedly conducted the local government polls despite the protestation of the PDP, in order to install his party, (AC’s) candidates at the local level.
And so the reign of intrigues continue.