10th April, 2013
Nnamdi Felix / Abuja
Embattled former national secretary of Nigeria’s ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and former governor of Osun state, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, failed in a desperate attempt to return to his job at the PDP secretariat as a Federal High Court siting in Abuja, on Wednesday, threw away his application to stay the execution of the court’s judgment which removed him from office.
The court presided by Justice Abdul Kafarati, had on January 11, 2013, in its judgment in a suit filed by the Ogun State Chapter of the PDP, held that Oyinlola was not fit to occupy the position of National Secretary of the party after a sister court in Lagos cancelled the zonal congresses through which rode to office as PDP national secretary.
Ruling on Oyinlola’s application, Justice Kafarati held that the judgment which sacked him from office was a declaratory order, which cannot be stayed.
The court also upheld PDP’s argument that there was nothing to stay, as the judgment had already been complied with.
According to the judge, “The judgment of 11 January 2013 is declaratory in nature, a declaratory judgment is not capable of being stayed. It is not every ruling or judgment of the court that can be stayed. The judgment of 11 January 2013, being declaratory, cannot be stayed. The order of this court had already been executed as the applicant had already been removed from office as the National Secretary of the PDP, so there is nothing to stay”.
He added that Oyinlola’s application for stay of execution lacks merit and thereafter dismissed it.
Oyinlola had asked the court to stay the execution of the judgment on the ground that the court did not ask the PDP to remove him from office but the party maintained that it acted in line with the judgment by removing him as their national secretary and argued that the application had been overtaken by event, as the order had already been executed before he filed the application.