The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has reinstated former Osun State governor, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola as the national secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Delivering the judgement of the panel, Justice J.T. Toh set aside the judgement of the lower court and ordered that Oyinlola be re-instated, insisting that the trial court erred in law by granting the declarative reliefs sought by the Ogun State chapter of the PDP.
But in a swift reaction to the judgment, Professor Wale Oladipo, the secretary of the PDP who took over from Oyinlola said the Supreme Court will have the final say on the matter, saying that there was no cause for alarm.
“As to my position, nothing has changed. I remain the national secretary of the party; Supreme Court will have the final say, no cause for alarm, he said.”
The appellate court held that Oyinlola’s right to fair hearing was infringed upon, even as the court invoked Section 15 of the Court of Appeal Act, when it posited that the lower court had infringed on the fundamental human rights of the appellant to fair hearing.
Oyinlola had told the appellate court that Justice Abdul Kafarati of the Federal High Court Abuja, who ordered him out of office, erred in law when he assumed jurisdiction over a dispute he said bothered on intra-party affair.
He argued that by doing so, Justice Karafati overreached his powers by sacking him from office “against the weight of evidence.”
“The learned trial Justice erred in Law when he overruled the preliminary objection to the jurisdiction of the court and assumed jurisdiction and delivered judgment,” Oyinlola said.
Oyinlola, in the appeal insisted that the subject matter of his suit was purely a domestic affair of the PDP which he said was clearly non-justiciable.
He contended that the plaintiffs failed to maximize the internal remedies provided by the party for adjudication of disputes, adding that the crux of the matter was such that neither the Federal High Court nor indeed any court of law, has jurisdiction over the subject matter of the suit.
He submitted that the trial Judge erred in law when the court disregarded the ruling of the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal delivered on June 25, 2012, and held that the entire action does not constitute an abuse of court process.
He therefore asked for an order reversing the Judgment of trial Justice Kafarati and substituting thereto an order striking out and or dismissing the entire action with substantial cost.
It would be recalled that Oyinlola was ordered to vacate his office after a Federal High Court, held that there was merit in a suit that was entered against him by chieftains of the PDP in Ogun State.
In his judgment, Justice Kafarati, held that Oyinola was not fit to continue in office as the National Secretary of the PDP, saying his action amounted to a criminal conduct capable of attracting prison sentence for being a flagrant disobedience to subsisting court orders.
Justice Kafarati, stated that Oyinlola could not have emerged as the nominee of the PDP in view of the two pending court orders restraining the South West zone of the party from holding the congress that purportedly produced him.
Speaking further on the Appeal Court ruling, Oladipo maintained that the Supreme Court has the final say “The deponents from Ogun State who took him (Oyinlola) to court in the first place I believe are now in the process of going to Supreme Court which is the final court, they are exercising their rights to appeal,” he said.
In the same vein, national legal adviser of the PDP, Victor Yusuf Kwom said he would not comment now until, he sees the judgment.
