The Federal High Court in Abuja has scheduled September 29 to hear an application on the dispute surrounding withheld local government funds in Osun State.
At the resumed session, the Osun State government argued that with the court’s vacation ending on September 16, the matter should be returned to Osogbo for proper hearing. Lead counsel for the state, Musibau Adetunbi (SAN), maintained that the authorization permitting the Attorney General of the Federation to have the case heard in Abuja during vacation had expired with the end of the vacation.
Adetunbi further questioned the validity of a letter allegedly issued from the office of the Chief Judge directing Justice Emeka Nwite to hear the substantive matter in Abuja. He claimed the document was signed by a person described as “Personal Assistant to the Personal Assistant” of the Chief Judge, a designation he dismissed as unknown to law.
Counsel for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Muritala Abdulrasheed (SAN), and that of the Accountant General of the Federation, Tajudeen Oladoja (SAN), opposed Osun’s application, alleging that it was a tactic to delay the matter. They stressed that the tenure of the APC chairmen and councillors, elected in October 2022, would expire on October 22, making the case irrelevant if not quickly resolved.
Justice Nwite, after listening to all arguments, adjourned to September 29 to first rule on the issue of jurisdiction before delving into the substantive suit. The judge also struck out the name of the Attorney General of the Federation as a defendant following the discontinuance of the case against him by the plaintiff.
The suit, filed by Osun State Attorney General, Oluwole Jimi-Bada, seeks to restrain the CBN and Accountant General of the Federation from opening or maintaining accounts for the APC chairmen and councillors, whom the state insists were already removed from office by a subsisting judgment of the Federal High Court, later upheld by the Court of Appeal. The state is also seeking an interim injunction stopping the disbursement of federal allocations to the sacked local government officials.