Following Tuesday’s order of the Oyo State High Court freezing the execution of the May 6, 2019 judgement that barred the Oyo State government from dissolving local governments(LG) and local council development areas(LCDA) in the state, the chairman, Association of Local Government of Nigeria(ALGON) in the state, Prince Ayodeji Abass-Aleshinloye has said the sacked LG chairmen are confident of victory.
Aleshinloye stated this on Tuesday in the court premises after the ruling.
According to Aleshinloye, the LG chairmen are law abiding citizens that will do things according to the rule of law and that ALGON as a body would not engage in violent activities or anything that will portray it as being unruly.
His words:” We are sure of victory. We would be victorious in the end.
“There is no hassles at all, we are okay. All these things are technicalities of court and is allowed in law.
“There is nowhere they are running to because we know what we are doing, we are enlightened people, we are educated people and we will do things according to the rule of law.
“We would not do anything that will portray us as being violent or somebody unruly. So what we are doing is to go the way of rule of law.”
The ALGON boss however lamented the premise on which the judge granted the relief sought by the defendants, positing that the judge could have give the claimants few days to engage the services of another counsel.
“We all know that our lawyer is also handling another case at the tribunal today and he can not come. He wrote a letter to them and if you are saying because our lawyer did not come, you denied the poor people of Oyo State who have come to you to seek for justice fair hearing.
“Even if you say because our lawyers did not come, the worse thing you can do is for you to give us a day or two to engage another lawyer, that should be the case.
“However, that is the way he wants it to run. He has not taken anything away from the case in court and we are also aware that their counsel has said they are in court of appeal,” Aleshinloye said.
Speaking on the resolution of the House of Assembly which supported the action the governor took by removing the council bosses, Aleshinloye said: “The House of Assembly resolution has taken nothing away from our case, the court has said. “Even, the House of Assembly is joined and it is in that judgement that they have no right whatsoever to dissolve the local government. It is written there and they know it and when they started telling us that we should go to court , we educated them that what we have here is a subsisting judgement.
“It is you that need to go to appeal , they heeded to our counselling and they are in appeal court.”
He described what happened in court as a “normal thing”, saying the chairmen are waiting patiently and they know that judgement is on their side.
