…says action shows lack of regard for rule of law, due process
The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has condemned the nullification of the selection process that produced Oba Adegboyega Famodun as the Owa of Igbajoland by Governor Ademola Adeleke, describing it as vindictive, frivolous, and an abuse of the governorship power.
It would be recalled that Adeleke, through his Executive Order issued on November 25th, 2022 directed the Owa of Igbajoland, Oba Famodun and two other traditional rulers to step aside from their palaces for no just cause other than the fact that they were given the Staff of Office by past Governor Adegboyega Oyetola, now Minister of Marine and Blue Economy.
On Thursday, Adeleke released a White Paper on the report of a committee he set up 14 months ago to review the “stepping-aside” order, notwithstanding pendency of the issues at the law courts.
The Osun State chairman of the APC, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi, on Friday asked Adeleke if he was not aware that the aggrieved Igbajo princes who contested and lost in the contest filed a suit in the Osun State High Court and that the governor himself is a defendant in the suit to which he has filed processes to challenge the competence of the suit?
“It is strange that Governor Adeleke, notwithstanding the pendency of the suit, keeps hounding, humiliating and denying Oba Famodun his rights.
“The purported nullification of the process that produced the Owa of Igbajoland by the governor is a legal absurdity with a metaphorical foot of clay, waiting to fall like a pack of cards.
“The approach of Governor Adeleke on the issue flagrantly offends the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which allows for separation of powers among the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary.
“Those who are thinking for Governor Adeleke should cover their faces in shame for encouraging him to be a judge in a case where he is a defendant.
“If this was going to be the outcome of his obnoxious Executive Order on the obaship matter, why did it take Adeleke so long a time to come up with such trash?
“The fact remains that the nullification of Oba Famodun’s emergence, which followed a due process, was bound to fail and has failed”, Lawal stated.
