The lawyer in a separate letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, the Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Idris Ibrahim and four others urged quick intervention on Osun matters before it gets out of hand.
In the letter dated 24th November, 2017, copies of which were made available to journalists in Osogbo, Ajibola explained that “the insistence of Aregbesola and the State Independent Electoral Commission (OSSIEC) to conduct parliamentary elections at the Local Government (LG) level in Osun in spite of the on-going suit against such plan was a great threat to the nation’s democracy”.
He said, “a mark of conduct breach anywhere in Nigeria is an established constitutional breach everywhere in Nigeria, and if allowed passively or actively, it goes to the constitutional founding of the Federal Republic which in every sense means the country founded on a violable constitution is not worthy of its birth”.
But, reacting over the development, Osun State Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General, Dr Bashiru Ajibola described the position and “acts of Ajibola as not only unprofessional, but also contemptuous”.
Speaking during a telephone chat with the Nigerian Tribune, he said that Ajibola had already filed a matter before an Osun State High Court over the local government poll, just as he expressed surprise that the legal practitioner’s disposition on the issue called for questioning his professional incompetence.
The Commissioner for Justice added that there was urgent need to write a letter to the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), with view to investigate Ajibola’s professional misconduct and appropriate sanctions meted to him, adding that how can a lawyer write President Buhari, the National Assembly and others over a matter, which he had already filed before a court of law.
But, Ajibola argued that “Since Alhaji Rauf Aregbesola assumed office as the governor of Osun State in November 2010, it has been one move of constitutional breach to the other in the course of his governance of the state. Notwithstanding the position of the constitution and the Supreme Court decisions that established in plethora of cases that the LG must be democratically constituted, it is a constitutional aberration to set up the constitution of the LG administration on a caretaker government”, saying “in the last seven years, Aregbesola has been running the councils in the state on a caretaker government”.
He claimed that Aregbesola and the majority of lawmakers in who are members All Progressives Congress (APC), “in a condemnable devastating connivance purportedly amended the Local Government (Administration) Law CAP 72A, VOL.4, Laws of Osun State 2002 to abrogate the right of people to directly contest an election into the office of Chairman of a local government council.
“The abrogation having affected the right granted by the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to the people of Osun State, a legal action has been taken against same in the court of law, which will give a legal view on the propriety of the abrogation and other allied constitutional matters in issue”, he added.
Ajibola said, “Aregbesola’s insistence is against the position of law in Nigeria. The position of the law as substantiated by the Supreme Court in Ezegbu versus F.A.T.B is that, ‘once a party is aware of a pending Court processes and whether or not Court has given a specific injunctive order, parties are bound to maintain status quo pending the determination of the Court process”.
and then