Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, has described as fake news the report that the Court of Appeal, Akure Division, reinstated sacked chairmen and councillors elected under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2022.
The governor, therefore, said that the APC officials, who claimed to have occupied all local council secretariats in the state, remained sacked by the order of the Federal High Court in the state and vowed to use the rule of law in getting “the illegal occupants” out of the council offices.
According to a statement by Adeleke’s spokesperson, Olawale Rasheed, the governor gave this clarification, yesterday, while briefing the Osun State Council of Traditional Rulers at a meeting in Osogbo on the crisis that has greeted the struggle for the control of local councils in the state.
He said that he was not responsible for the sacking of the APC officials but that a Federal High Court removed them from office in October 2022, while his predecessor, Adegboyega Oyetola, was still in office.
He accused the APC of plans to burn down the state, claiming that the opposition party’s “evil agenda is to illegally take over the council secretariats based on a Court of Appeal ruling that has no consequential orders or contain anything about the reinstatement of the sacked chairmen.”
The governor, therefore, appealed to the traditional rulers to further educate their subjects on the facts of the controversies, adding: “We should not allow fake news to be weaponised to destroy our dear state.”
Earlier in his remarks, the Chairman of the Osun Traditional Council, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, expressed displeasure at the deadly violence that the crisis caused and called for peace from all parties.
MEANWHILE, the APC, in a statement, yesterday, by its Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi, has accused Adeleke of treating with disdain the judgment of the appellate court that reinstated the elected APC council chairmen and councillors on February 10, 2025.
It also accused the governor of engaging in an abuse of court process.
The APC, in a statement, yesterday, by its Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi, accused Adeleke of treating with disdain the judgment of the appellate court that reinstated the elected APC council chairmen and councillors on February 10, 2025.
The party revealed that it was aware that Governor Adeleke was behind the court suits instituted by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, local government officials elected during the February 22, local government elections.
The Osun APC also stated that it was morally and legally offensive that the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Osun State chapter, could get entangled in an ostensibly partisan political matter.
It accused the union of swaying to the whims and caprices of the allegedly illegally elected council chairmen and councillors who were not known to the law of the land by virtue of the Court of Appeal judgment of February 10, 2025.
