Regardless of the position of the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, on the illegality of tomorrow’s council poll in Osun, the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Friday said that residents should troop out and cast their votes.
Recall that Fagbemi had, in a statement issued on Thursday, described the planned local government poll as illegal and unconstitutional, considering the February 10 Court of Appeal judgment in Akure, which purportedly reinstated councils’ chairmen and councillors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2022.
He submitted that, in the face of the law, the positions of the elected council officers were not vacant until October 2025; hence, conducting a fresh poll would amount to an aberration.
However, the chairman of the PDP in Osun, Sunday Bisi, in a statement forwarded to journalists, informed residents, especially eligible voters, to disregard Fagbemi’s position, urging them to troop out and vote for candidates of their choice.
Describing the Minister of Justice’s statement as malicious, he argued that the development was another plot by the President Bola Tinubu-led APC administration to destabilise Osun State as a form of vengeance and vendetta against the peace-loving people of Osun State, who voted out the party in 2022.
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The statement described the election as a fundamental right of the citizens in a constitutional democracy and asserted that it cannot be tied to the fair-weather whims of a vexed individual like the AGF, Lateef Fagbemi.
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 July 16, 2022, governorship election in Osun State, which ended in shame for Fagbemi and his team.
The statement read: “It is, therefore, not surprising that the same individual is attempting to foist his partisan opinion on the state, obviously taking sides with members of his political party, APC, with whom he lost together up to the Supreme Court.
“The PDP reckons 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 opinions, in several instances, have been thrown out many times by judges of various courts of competent jurisdiction.
“Lateef Fagbemi is not without blemished opinions as a legal practitioner before he was assigned the job of Attorney General. Such blemished 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, Lateef and beneficiaries of his malicious opinion should test such a sub judice stance in a court of law after the conduct of the local government election in Osun State.”
