By Alfaki Nasidi
The Federal High Court sitting in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, South-West Nigeria has declared the local government election held on October 15, 2022 as illegal, unconstitutional, null and void.
Justice Nathaniel Emmanuel Ayoola sacked all the chairmen and councillors elected into the local government councils across the state.
He held that the election conducted by the Osun State Independent Electoral Commission, OSIEC, was in contravention of Section 29 and 32 of the 2022 Electoral Act.
The court ordered the Local Government Chairmen and Councillors to vacate Council Secretariats and Offices with immediate effect.
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP had approached the court asking it to stop OSIEC from going ahead with the planned polls.
Reacting to the judgement, PDP State Caretaker Chairman, Akindele Adekunle lamented that about N1.5 billion which would have best been used for workers welfare was wasted by outgoing administration of Governor Oyetola for the conduct of the election in addition to several millions of naira illegally paid as salaries and allowances to the council officials.
He stated that the PDP had warned against conducting the election, citing all relevant legal authorities to convince OSIEC to back out of the undemocratic exercise.
Adekunle maintained that the judgement is an affirmation of the correctness of many alerts the party had issued in recent times
