The soliloquy recently engaged in by the former Governor of Osun State, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, has been quite disturbing that it needs be addressed in order to save the public from fatigue through his cacophony of complaints. It is a case of an incompetent drowned master of a ship who turned around in a forlorn hope that blaming the wreckage removers would conjure him back to life.
The soliloquy recently engaged in by the former Governor of Osun State, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, has been quite disturbing that it needs be addressed in order to save the public from fatigue through his cacophony of complaints. It is a case of an incompetent drowned master of a ship who turned around in a forlorn hope that blaming the wreckage removers would conjure him back to life.
Oyinlola in his unfortunate piece titled “What Oyinlola Told NJC Panel” and published in the Nigerian Tribune of Friday 20 May, 2011 at page 9 thereof, raised certain allegations in his attempt to vilify the President and the Justices of the Court of Appeal who sat on Aregbesola v. Oyinlola’s case. First, Oyinlola complained that it was wrong for the Court of Appeal to nullify votes in ten Local Governments out of thirty Local Governments which make up Osun State and rely on the remaining twenty Local Governments to upturn his fraudulent election into the governorship of Osun State. This is evidence that his knowledge of the law is completely puerile and his claim that he went through legal studies in one provincial university is suspect.
Oyinlola must realize that the basis of Aregbesola’s petition was that Oyinlola was not elected by majority of lawful votes and that he, Aregbesola, had the majority of lawful votes cast at the election. This is a recognised ground for challenging an election all over the world. The implication of such ground is that certain number of votes is a product of illegality or malpractices which render such votes unlawful. The fate of such unlawful votes is absolute cancellation and the remaining votes would be used to declare the Petitioner winner in so far as the remaining votes are sufficient to meet the constitutional requirements. The fact that the votes to be cancelled are large in number does not turn them to valid votes or render the court impotent to award victory to the Petitioner who ought to have been declared winner of the election if the fraudulent and criminal acts of the Respondent had not stolen the show. In all the polling units challenged in the petition, there was sufficient evidence before the Tribunal and the Court of Appeal that the votes were products of brigandage, stuffing of ballot boxes with illicitly thumb-printed ballot papers, multiple voting and all other vices alleged in the petition and proved in open court. Yet, Oyinlola would have preferred the Court of Appeal to close its eyes to all his ungodly acts to retain him in office!
It is on record and was led in evidence that on the day of the election, i.e. the 14th day of April, 2007, Olagunsoye Oyinlola came personally to his polling unit in Odo Otin where one of his aides snatched the ballot box and carried it after him into his car and drove off. The evidence in this regard was not impeached by Oyinlola’s lawyers in cross-examination but they rather concentrated on the irrelevance. Yet Oyinlola would shamelessly attack men of decency who righted the wrongs he perpetrated against the hapless people of Osun State between 2007 and 2010. While Oyinlola seriously believed that every judge has a price as he succeeded in purchasing judgments from Thomas Naron’s and Garba Lawal’s panels of judges, he was disappointed that the incorruptible panel of Justice Clara Bata Ogunbiyi refused to be bought by Oyinlola’s filthy lucre. This is the reason for all his baseless allegations.
To substantiate the point that where unlawful votes cast at an election are nullified, the remaining valid votes shall be used to declare the winner of the election, we refer Oyinlola and his corruption-ridden team of looters to the cases of Agagu v. Mimiko [2009] 7 NWLR (Pt. 1140) 342, INEC v Oshiomole [2009] 4 NWLR (pt 1132) 607 at 670-671 and Fayemi v. Oni. We also refer to the case of Ogboru v. Uduaghan [2011] 2 NWLR (Pt. 1232) 538 where the Court of Appeal nullified the elections in 14 Local Governments out of 25 Local Governments in Delta State and ordered a re-run election in those 14 Local Governments simply BECAUSE the remaining parts of the State where valid election took place were not sufficient to meet the constitutional requirement of ¼ in 2/3 of the State as to declare Ogboru the winner of the election.
Second, Oyinlola, in his soulless publication, also alleged that it was the written reports of the Ward Supervisors that the Court of Appeal relied on heavily to give judgment against him. What a gross misrepresentation of facts! It is on record that the Court of Appeal had earlier held that the evidence of the various Ward Supervisors who monitored the election and gave direct evidence of what they witnessed on the day of the election was not hearsay but credible evidence as these Ward Supervisors were not shaken in evidence. The court relied on the cases of Famurewa v. Onigbogi and Lasun v. Awoyemi in coming to this conclusion which is a valid point of law. The reference to the written reports of polling agents was just to corroborate the testimonies of the various Ward Supervisors. What an “incorrigible, inveterate, tendentious and malevolent blackmailer” this Olagunsoye Oyinlola is!
The third ground of Oyinlola’s castigation of the judgment of the Court of Appeal and Justice Ayo Salami is the report that Justice Salami said that he only chose those judges he trusted to preside over the appeal. This point has been addressed in former complaints by Oyinlola where it was fully explained to him but he has remained impervious to reason. Oyinlola must realize that the panel that presided over Oshiomole’s case also presided over Mimiko’s case and heaven was not brought down as he is attempting to do now. The same panel of Supreme Court Justices that presided over Ajasin v. Omoboriowo also decided Nwobodo v. Onoh. Nobody accused the Justices of the Supreme Court of composing a single panel to decide many cases. When victory was awarded to the PDP Governor due to the insufficiency of the evidence led by the Petitioner in Amosun v. Daniel’s case, Justice M. L. Garba and others were praised to high heavens by Oyinlola flying his agbada like an overblown kite to Ogun State to celebrate with Daniel. Now that judgment was against Oyinlola, the whole world must have conspired against him to force him out of office. What a pity!
In a complete manipulation of facts, Oyinlola alleged that the Court of Appeal nullified the election in the entire 10 Local Governments challenged by Aregbesola inclusive of Ward 7, Boluwaduro Local Government, Ward 7, Ifedayo Local Government and three Wards in Modakeke-Ife. This is absolute falsehood which Oyinlola is challenged to substantiate. That at his age he could engage in such inelegant fabrication and shameless idiocy is quite disturbing. The judgment of the Court of Appeal and the deductions made from the votes credited to both Aregbesola and Oyinlola were based on the computations made by the Petitioner in that case. The computations did not include the votes for Ward 7, Boluwaduro, Ward 7, Ifedayo and the three wards in Modakeke. One wonders what judgment Oyinlola has read if he has read any at all. The votes cancelled did not include those ones as the Petitioner did not challenge them and neither did the Court of Appeal make any reference to them. The votes cancelled were those votes which emanated from the remaining parts of Boluwaduro, Ifedayo and Ife East Local Governments where the Petitioners alleged malpractices and proved them sufficiently.
Oyinlola’s Wickedness and Chicanery
It is rather disappointing to read all manners of lies being trumpeted around by this failed soldier whose misadventure in peace-keeping missions abroad should have earned him a trial for war crimes. If Nigeria were to be a civilized part of the world, walahi, Oyinlola should be serving a long term jail sentence by now. Here is a Military Administrator in Lagos State who pauperized Lagosians and stole and relocated the Lagos State Government House generators to his home town in Okuku upon the termination of his unfortunate reign in Lagos State. During his tenure there was no distinction between his pocket and the State coffers as he profligately squandered tax payers’ money on alcoholism, women of easy virtue, organizing and dancing at ignominious parties. What a squander-mania!
During his unlawful occupation in both Lagos and Osun States, bitumen ran away from both States as our roads remained unmotorable and a complete mess. His seven and half-year regime in Osun inflicted unprecedented and undesired poverty on the people while he kept on dancing shamelessly all around the State. The people of the State were lamenting the mishap of having a lunatic in the delicate office of the Governor whereas this senseless individual kept on with his profligacy attending the birthday of a ten-year old daughter of one of his ill-fated aides where tens of millions of naira were wasted. Yet this decorated monkey has the gut to condemn men of conscience for telling him in unambiguous terms that he came to power by electoral fraud.
It is on record that uncompleted and abandoned projects litter the nooks and crannies of Osun State courtesy of the ill-fated government of Olagunsoye Oyinlola. All these contracts were fully paid for by the usurper Oyinlola whereas none of them was completed for the whole eight years that he spent in power. The contractors have been revealing how they shared about 8 Billion Naira with Oyinlola and his aides. Yet this man had the gut to revel in gutter language and toilet accusations against men superior to him in knowledge, wisdom and intellect. The fact that he was a general in an irresponsible era does not mean that he is at liberty to continue with his impunity. He must learn to live with decorum otherwise one may be forced to expose further his criminal acts the profit of which for him may be many years of incarceration.
We know why Oyinlola has embarked on this fraudulent campaign. Having lost all elections including one in his ward, he knew that his political irrelevance has now been made absolute. He has been begging Goodluck Jonathan to appoint him a minister and he felt that he needed to arouse pity by claiming that the decision of the Court of Appeal that ousted him from office was wrong. It is only a senseless individual that would be persuaded by such argument. Here is a governor that left office and within six months could not even win an election in his Ward. This means that if he contested as a councilor he would lose. He was given a heavy and unprecedented shellacking by the electorate who never elected him to the office he occupied for nearly eight years. He said the performing Action Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, was put in office by the court and not the electorate, now we know who was retained in office by the corrupt Naron and Garba.
Oyinlola’s government claimed to have paid fully for the establishment of a pharmaceutical company in Osogbo yet, the company has been shown to be a mere pipe through which money was siphoned. This same Oyinlola spent more than 6 years constructing a six-kilometer road from Akoda Junction to Orisunmbare Junction in Osogbo. What a terrible failure! One kilometer per annum! Disaster personified.
We call on all men of conscience whose peace is being disturbed by the murmurings of this chocolate general to kindly ignore him and concentrate on the legitimate business of how Osun would develop. Osun a dara o!
Olatunde Falola Ayinde
16, Molade Aluko Street,
Okota, Lagos.
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