Mon. Feb 17th, 2025
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Former Governor of Oyo State, Adebayo Alao-Akala has advised  Governor Seyi Makinde to postpone the forthcoming local government election which is scheduled for 22nd of May, 2021 to a later date in order to protect and preserve the sanctity of democracy.

Alao-Akala gave this advice while reacting to the Supreme Court judgement that invalidated the sack of the duly elected 33 local government chairmen in the state.

Akala said: “Now that the dust has finally settled on the legality or otherwise on the sack of the duly elected local government chairmen, it is trite in law for Governor Makinde to see that there is the need to postpone the election.”

According to him, “going on with the council elections as earlier scheduled will throw the state into another round of legal gymnastics”.

” My advise to him is to sit down with the OYSIEC officials, look into the new development and do the needful which is to shift the election date.”

“Fortunately, the Oyo State Independent electoral Commission Chairman is a Learned fellow. He know what the law says as regards disenfranchisement, he knows what the constitution says about holding elections and he knows the consequences of holding a one-sided election.”

“Apart from that, both of them should also know that they have a name to protect now and in the future, as far as the development of our democracy in Nigeria is concerned. This is an opportunity for him to correct his past mistakes.”

Speaking further, Alao-Akala stressed that “Governor Makinde should not commit another blunder by going on with that election which  I am 100 percent certain will be faulted again by the constitution, the Electoral Act and the judiciary”.

While commending the Supreme Court judgement for condemning the act of unguarded disregard of the sanctity of the constitution, Alao-Akala urged the judicial arm of government to find possible means of fast-tracking time-bound litigations that might not deny litigants of their legal rights as in the case of Oyo State ALGON where the final judgment is delivered few days to the official end of the tenure of office of the litigants.

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