Newly inaugurated governor of Ondo state, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu SAN, has approached the Court of Appeal to upturn the decision of the Ondo state high court barring the state government from sacking 18 LGA chairmen.
Former Ondo state governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko had attempted to dissolve the 18 local government councils in the state but was forced to suspend the action when the 18 LGA chairmen approached the state high court.
The chairmen and councilors were elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which lost the Ondo governorship election to Akeredolu’s All Progressives Congress (APC).
The Ondo State High Court had, on January 17, ruled on a suit filed by the 18 local government chairmen and councilors, led by their chairman, Mr David Alarapon, Chairman of Akure South LGA.
The court ruled that the state government had no right to remove the elected officials until their tenure lapsed.
In the judgment delivered by the then Chief Judge of the state, Justice Olasehinde Kumuyi, the court upheld the claims by Alarapon and 34 others, among who were some councilors, that the council officials were democratically elected to serve for a tenure of three years which would lapse on April 25, 2019.
Kumuyi further held that the “tenure of an elected councilor or office holder cannot be abridged or determined at the whims or caprices of anyone except the electorate.”
According to the Vanguard, Akeredolu’s appeal of the decision is due for mention at the Appeal Court, sitting in Akure, the Ondo state capital, on Monday.
The 18 LGA chairmen and councilors are being represented by Mr Olusola Oke, another lawyer who similarly contested the governorship election on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) but also lost to Akeredolu.
