The Court of Appeal, Ibadan Division, Oyo State, has ruled that the Ogun State Independent Electoral Commission cannot continue to organise and supervise elections of the state’s 37 Local Council Development Authorities.
The court made this declaration in an appeal filed by a lawyer, Oluwaseun Lawal, against the judgment of Ogun State High Court delivered by Honourable Justice A.A. Akinyemi on May 20, 2020.
Joined in the suit marked CA/IB/292/2020 are the state governor, government, Attorney General, the State House of Assembly, and OSIEC.
In his argument before the Appeal Court, Lawal argued that the new local government areas created by the House of Assembly under the Local Government (Creation and Transitional Provisions Amendment) Law, 2016, could not take effect and begin to operate as “Local Council Development Areas” by virtue of Section 2, subsection 1 and Section 3 of the 2016 Local Government Law.
He pleaded that the Appeal Court should determine whether the provisions of the 2016 LG law empower the state electoral commission to constitutionally and validly conduct elections into elective offices in any or all of the newly created 37 LGAs which have purportedly taken effect and operated as “Local Councils Development Areas”
Lawal said that the state electoral commission cannot empower itself the power to recognise, organise, undertake and supervise elections into any of ‘inchoatethe 37 LCDAs’ purportedly made operative by Section 2 of Ogun LG law, adding that none of them is included in the list of local government recognised by the 1999 constitution.
He noted that the constitution recognises 20 LGs only in the state.
Lawal prayed the court to declare that “the Ogun State Local Government (Creation and Transitional Provisions Amendment) Law, 2016, is unconstitutional, invalid and therefore, null and void to the extent to which it seeks to give effect to, operate or run the 37 new Local Governments Areas as “Local Council Development Areas” even when the National Assembly is yet to discharge the sacred responsibility imposed on it by Section 8(5) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
He also prayed the court to restrain the respondents from relating with or appropriating funds to any or all of the newly created 37 Local Government Areas or conducting any election into any elective office in the LGAs.
He stated, “Since the inchoate 37 newly created LGAs are yet to be constitutionally recognised, the fifth respondent herein, being itself, a constitutional creation with its power expressly circumscribed in the Constitution, cannot conduct any valid election into any of the said 37 LGAs until National Assembly discharges its responsibility under the Constitution to accord the 37 new LGAs the requisite constitutional recognition.
“It would amount to sheer illegality and clearly against public policy for the first to fourth Respondents to continue to allocate public funds to the 37 inchoate LGAs in order to make them operational when the Supreme Court has clearly held them to be inoperative till such a time when the National Assembly shall discharge the sacred responsibility imposed on it.”
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