Appeal Court sacks 30 Osun council chiefs
From Mathias Okwe, John-Abba Ogbodo (Abuja), Iyabo Lawal (Ibadan), Tunji Omofoye (Osun) and Niyi Bello (Akure)
FOLLOWING the lingering crisis in Ondo State as a result of the sack of the elected chairmen and councillors of the local governments by Governor Olusegun Mimiko, the Federal Government yesterday advised all parties involved in the matter to resort to due process and eschew self-help.
Also, the House of Representatives yesterday asked all parties in the Ondo crisis to toe the path of constitutionality.
While presenting the motion on Ondo crisis on the floor yesterday, the chief sponsor, Farouk Lawan, amended the prayers. The original prayers of the motion were for the House to condemn the dissolution of the local councils in the state by Mimiko and urge the governor to rescind his action.
But Farouk amended the prayers to "that the House should ask all parties involved to toe the path of constitutionality and not to take action that will aggravate political tension in the state."
With the amendment of the prayers, the Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, put the question and the motion was unanimously carried. Before the question was put, Lawan had argued that the position of the House was not new, recalling that the same intervention was done in Plateau and Anambra states.
The debate was not without tension as members attempted to raise points of constitutional matters but the Speaker ruled them out of order. Former Speaker, Patricia Etteh, visibly angered by the development, sought recognition and when given the opportunity, she expressed her dissatisfaction over the mode of proceedings, saying: "I have been here since 1999 and in all circumstances, point of constitutional matters take precedence because it is superior to our rules."
The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa (SAN), who made government's position known, said Mimiko was completely on his own with regard to his insistence that he would not rescind his decision to sack the said officials.
However, all the Osun State 30 council chairmen were yesterday sent packing through a court ruling which declared the December 15, 2007 election that brought them into office illegal. The election, which was boycotted by all opposition parties in the state, had declared the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winner in all the councils.
Aondoakaa spoke with journalists at the Transcorp Hotel, Abuja venue of a workshop on Advanced Arbitration, organised by SICA-FICA Training and Education in association with Chartered Institute of Arbitration and Lagos Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration.
Aondoakaa said: "He (Mimiko) is on his own and has expressed his opinion, but the position of the Federal Government is that only due process would be acceptable."
But the AGF refused to expatiate on what he meant by due process as he simply retorted: "The due process."
However, sources close to the AGF explained it to mean an absolute recourse to the courts and rule of law.
Aondoakaa also said there was nothing wrong with the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) deploying scores of policemen to local government areas when the sacked council chairmen and councillors stormed the offices and reinstated themselves.
His words: "The position of the Federal Government is that the due process must be followed. The police authorities are there to protect lives and property and make sure that all the parties respect the law. There is nothing wrong with police doing their job of protecting lives and promoting peace and orderliness."
Earlier, while declaring the arbitration workshop open, Aondoakaa commended his predecessor and Officer for West Africa, SICA-FICA, Chief Bayo Ojo (SAN), for his immense assistance in helping him settle into office as AGF as well as his contribution in promoting arbitration in Nigeria.
Aondoakaa also called on those involved in commercial agreements to make use of the Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration in Lagos instead of running to international centres abroad anytime they have issues to sort out.
According to him, "equally important is the need to use the Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration in Lagos. It has been my experience that in most commercial agreements, even where substantial obligations are to be performed in Nigeria, the parties still prefer to choose other international arbitral centres over and above the Lagos Centre."
And in Osun State, after a one year controversy on the status of local government chiefs, the Court of Appeal sitting in Ibadan yesterday sacked the entire 30 chairmen of local government councils over the violation of the principles of the Electoral Act 2006.
Justice Chidi Uwa, in his ruling, said the Osun State Independent Electoral Commission (OSSIEC) contravened the provisions of the Electoral Act by its failure to give the required 150 days notice to the political parties to prepare for the council polls.
For violating the law, Justice Uwa sacked the council chairmen and ordered a fresh election in compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act.
Four political parties, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), the National Conscience Party (NCP) and the Action Congress (AC), had dragged the OSSIEC to the state High Court over the conduct of the March 19, 2008 polls.
The parties maintained in their brief that the said election was conducted in violation of the Electoral Act 2006 and urged the court to stop the conduct of the election.
But in his ruling, the state Chief Judge, Justice Fasasi Ogunsola, dismissed the suit, saying since the plaintiffs had duly filed nomination papers in the council polls, they could not turn round to ask that the election be stopped.
Justice Fasasi, who though admitted that the Electoral Act was superior to the Osun State Electoral Law, had described the four parties as approbating and reprobating, saying that a sufficient notice was given to all parties in line with the provisions of Section 10 of the Osun State Electoral Law.
Displeased with the decision of the lower court, the four political parties proceeded to the appellate court, urging it to declare the council election illegal.
Justice Uwa, in her ruling, expressed surprise at the judicial position of the trial Chief Judge in dismissing the opposition parties' suit, pointing out that there was outright contradiction in the findings of the trial judge. Uwa faulted the supremacy conferred on the Osun Electoral Law over the Electoral Act and the provisions of the 1999 Constitution.
The appellate court maintained that the provisions of the Constitution, as outlined in paragraphs 11 and 12 of the second schedule of the 1999 Constitution and Section 31 of the Electoral Act was unambiguous on the guidelines for the conduct of elections, especially on notice of participation on political parties. By virtue of Section 31 of the Electoral Act, Justice Uwa said: "It is clear and unambiguous from this provision that the electoral agency must give 150 days notice to all the parties in the election contrary to the 21 days stipulation of the Osun State electoral law."
She agreed with the parties that adequate notice was not given to them by the OSSIEC on the poll, remarking: "The Electoral Act did not provide for substantial non-compliance. Twenty-one days of the Osun Electoral Law should not be the same as the 150 days stipulated in the Electoral Act."
The appellate court judge maintained that the contentious Section 10 of the Osun State Electoral Law, which the electoral agency relied on to conduct the election, was inconsistent with Section 31 of the Electoral Act of 2006 and therefore "illegal, unconstitutional, null and void. The law can't stand."
She faulted the three exhibits relied on by the respondents and which the trial chief judge also used to determine the case, pointing out that the exhibits, which were the receipts of forms for the participation in the poll from the forms procured by the opposition parties on May 2007, the press release fixing the date of the poll arising from the meeting of the stakeholders of September 19, 2007 and a newspaper advertorial on the date of the poll of November 11, 2007 did not all make the 150 days required by law to justify the conduct of the poll.
Uwa declared that the lower court chief judge should have rejected the evidence of the respondents who he said did not establish that adequate notice was given to the plaintiffs/appellants in the case. The argument by the counsel to OSSIEC, Aderemi Abimbola, which urged the court to weigh the millions of tax-payers' money committed into the poll was also rejected as the judge remarked that the electoral agency should have allowed the burden of the tax-payers' money to guide it before rushing to conduct the poll without compliance with the Electoral Act.
Immediately after the judgment, the OSSIEC counsel gave notice that a stay of the execution of the judgment has been filed before the Supreme Court.
The AC governorship candidate, Rauf Aregbesola, expressed joy over the judgment, which he described as judicial testimony to the illegality that characterised the conduct of the poll. Aregbesola said the beneficiaries of the illegal council poll had been swept off by the court ruling and urged supporters to prepare for the fresh election.
Meanwhile, the Osun State government said lawyers to OSSIEC had filed an application for a stay of execution of the Appeal Court ruling pending the final determination of the matter by the apex court.
The government, in a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mr. Lasisi Olagunju, said with the notice of appeal and the motion filed, nothing had changed in the administration of the 30 local governments while the council bosses would remain in office until the Supreme Court makes a final pronouncement on the issue.
The statement warned mischief-makers not to hide behind the Appeal Court verdict to attempt to rupture the peace of the state and advised the citizenry to go about their normal duties as there was no cause for alarm.
The government added that there was no connection between the case and the governorship appeal which was heard by a different panel of Justices of the Appeal Court who were yet to fix a date for the delivery of judgment in the case.
However, elder statesman and National Chairman of the Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA), Chief Olu Falae, has also warned the House of Representatives against interfering in the on-going crisis."
Falae, while speaking to The Guardian on phone in Akure yesterday, said: "It is wrong for the House to discuss the matter as such action could further compound the crisis and worsen the situation. When a matter is in court, the best thing to do is to wait for the outcome of the legal process."
According to Falae, "discussing a matter in court can lead to crisis because it is unconstitutional. The Labour Party in the state has already taken the matter to court, so was my party, the DPA. Why can't they wait for the matter to be resolved before passing judgment? We don't want anybody to cause crisis for us in Ondo State. We had one in 1983 and we don't want a repeat."
Speaking in the same vein, leader of Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-political group, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, described the attempt of the legislators to debate the matter as "jumping the gun."
