Court asked to sack Oyinlola as PDP Secretary

Nnamdi Felix / Abuja

The battle to unseat former governor of Osun state, Mr. Olagunsoye Oyinlola as National Secretary of Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, resumed at a Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday as the Ogun state Executive Committee of the party asked the court to order his removal from office.

In the suit filed by the chairman of the Ogun state chapter of the party, Mr. Adebayo Dayo and Secretary, Alhaji Semiu Sodipo, they challenged the retention of Oyinlola as a national officer in the party.

They claimed that the embattled Oyinlola was foisted on the South West region of the PDP by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in tacit support of former National Vice Chairman of the region, Alhaji Tajudeen Oladipo.

The duo contended that by orders of two separate judgments of the Lagos Division of the court which nullified the South West zonal congress that produced Oyinlola as candidate, that he has since ceased to be the national secretary of the party.

Consequently, they asked the court to declare his continued stay in office as invalid, null and void as his candidacy had been nullified. They also asked the court to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to delete Onyinlola’s name and replace it with another candidate that will emerge from a fresh zonal congress to be ordered by the court.

Questions raised by the aggrieved party chieftains for the court to determine include whether the candidacy of Oyinlola as a nominee of the South West zonal chapter of the party and his consequent election as National Secretary at the party’s national convention in March 2012, were not invalid, null and void by reason of the order and judgments of the Federal High Court made respectively on the 27th of April 2012 in suit no FHC/L/CS/282/2012 and 2nd May 2012 in suit no FHC/L/CS/347/2012 both of which nullified the South West zonal congress of March 2012 where he emerged.

They also want the court to determine whether the candidacy of Oyinlola as a nominee of the South West zonal chapter of the party and his consequent election to the office of National Secretary were not invalid, null and void by reason that he was not a valid nominee of the South West zone

They want the court to make an order removing Oyinlola from office as National Secretary of the PDP and another directing the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to rectify the records of the PDP by deleting his name as the party’s National Secretary and replacing same in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution with a candidate nominated at a valid congress of the South West zonal chapter of the PDP and this within 21 days of the order of the court.