As the controversy surrounding the conduct of tomorrow’s council poll in Osun State festers, the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Friday told residents to ignore the position of the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi’s position on the illegality of the exercise, saying they should troop out to cast their votes.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the AGF described the planned local government poll as illegal and unconstitutional, taking into cognisance the 10 February Court of Appeal judgement in Akure, which reinstated councils’ chairpersons and councillors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2022.
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Mr Fagbemi averred that in the face of the law, the positions of the elected councils’ officers were not vacant until October 2025; hence, conducting a fresh poll by the Osun State Independent Electoral Commission (OSSIEC) would amount to an aberration.
But Sunday Bisi, the chairperson of the PDP in Osun, in a statement, informed the residents, most especially eligible voters, to disregard Mr Fagbemi’s position and vote for candidates of their choice.
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Mr Bisi described the Minister of Justice’s statement as malicious, contending that the development was another plot by the President Bola Tinubu-led APC administration to destabilise Osun State as vengeance and vendetta against the peace-loving people of Osun State, who voted out the party in 2022.
The statement described elections as a fundamental right of the citizens in a constitutional democracy and cannot be tied to the fairweather whims of a vexed individual like the AGF.
It recalled that the minister led the legal team of the defeated former governor, Gboyega Oyetola, in the attendant legal tussle following the latter’s loss in the 16 July 2022 governorship election in Osun State, which ended in shame for Fagbemi and his team.
The statement reads, “It is therefore not surprising that the same individual is attempting to foist his partisan opinion on the state, obviously taking side with members of his political party, APC, with whom he lost together up to the Supreme Court.
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“The PDP reckon that Mr Fagbemi is not a court of law and that he has, to his record, a litany of losses in several cases he has handled as a counsel, one of which was the 2022 Osun governorship election. His opinion, therefore, cannot be taken and regarded as flawless, as such an opinion in several instances has been thrown away many times by judges of various courts of competent jurisdiction.
“Lateef Fagbemi is not without a blemished opinion as a legal practitioner before he was assigned the job of Attorney General. Such blemish tendencies cannot be washed away by virtue of his current position. He is human with vested interests, one of which he just displayed again over the Osun local government issues.”
“If anything, Mr Lateef and beneficiaries of his malicious opinion should test such sub judice stance in the court of law after the conduct of local government elections in Osun State,“ the statement added.
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