Article: Legality Or Otherwise Of The Recent Deposition Of Deji Of Akureland By The Kingmakers

                                         [Entrance To Deji's Palace]

Cosmic compassion and reflection need to be exercised in discussing the legality or otherwise of the alleged pronouncement of deposition of the Deji of Akurekingdom, a paramount ruler of Akurekingdom and its environs.

While we will not make the usual mistake of jumping into sentiments and variables that led to the Kingmakers’ pronouncements, it is advisable for us at this point to limit our opinion and suggestion to what we know and what can be difficult to be faulted i.e. the principles that guided the procedures of deposing a King in Akure kingdom.

However, the principles to rely on in the deposition of the Deji of Akure are the known Akure traditions, cultures and customs and we may add any verifiable historical antecedents.

Interestingly, having painfully made researches and contact, there is no known history of deposition of any Deji of Akure which therefore means that the Deposition of Deji is alien to Akure chieftaincy practices.

Deposition of any Deji has never been done before which therefore made the recent alleged deposition by the Kingmakers without any legal and moral justification a taboo.

The question that then needs to be asked is how can a Deji be removed from office? This question lies in the Ondo State Chieftaincy Law and several other courts authority which its combine effects stipulate that it only the Governor of the state that has such exclusive power to depose any errant king.

One is bold to resolve that by virtue of the Chieftaincy Law, the essence of Kingmakers and its functionality has been narrowly reduced to Advisers.

Thus, they are meant to only play advisory role and make recommendation not on the pages of newspaper but through the proper channels to the Governor of the State on who to be appointed/removed as the King. Therefore, it is legalistic to say the only institution permitted under the law to exercise its discretionary power to appoint/remove an Oba is the Governor of the State.

In the nutshell, the conduct of the Kingmakers so far is ultra vires, unconstitutional and usurpation of the power of the Governor and is therefore has no effect whatsoever.

The Deji of Akure kingdom reigns continue untill the Governor, His Excellency Dr. Olusegun Mimiko thinks otherwise.

One cannot but expect sentiments to be accrued to disagree with this position. A careful and detailed enquiry into such opposition would invariably emanate from Moral Aura. It is clear that this is the position of the Law and it stands until and unless it properly changed.

It takes a legisperitus of able mind to understand the underlying truth beneath this line of thought.
Irrespective of the above in view of the desire peace not only in Akureland but in every place of the realm it is opined that what is paramount in the instant case is the need for the present Deji, Oba Oluwadare Adedapo Adeshina and the Akure’s Chief in Council to sit together moderated by Ondo State Government to chart a peaceful way to end the seemly imbroglio particularly when the Deji has confirmed that it is only a family matter.

By Kayode Ajulo Esq.

News Release: Our Worst Fear Has Come, Fashola Have Betrayed Tejuosho Traders

                                              [Fashola]

The Democratic Peoples’ Alliance (DPA) has upbraided the Lagos State Government for betraying market women, traders and businessmen of Tejuosho Market by ceding the burnt complex to a private developer who has offered shops at a minimum of N750,000 per square metre.

Calculating that each trader would need a minimum of N3 million to secure space in the proposed complex, Lagos DPA in a statement by its Director of Publicity, Felix Oboagwina, regarded the pricing as scandalous, outrageous, unrealistic and clearly beyond the reach of old tenants.

In the words of the party: “For traders who paid about N60,000 per year for their shops now to be suddenly slapped with a rent of N3 million for those same spaces insults the intelligence.”

Calling on Lagosians to resist this new move, DPA described it as part of the grand design to sell off Lagos assets to private holdings, recalling that a similar treatment had beendispensed to the Lagos State Polytechnic Campus at Ikosi-Ketu, School of Nursing Ikoyi and mortuaries in government-owned hospitals.

“This is not Shoprite in Lekki or Silverbird Galleria at Victoria Island . This is Tejuosho Market and Tejuosho market has always been the people’s commonwealth, a legacy. Some of the stalls were handed down from generation to generation. It is a market for the masses and a veritable neighbourhood melting-pot, where the high and mighty rubs shoulders with the lowly. This new elitist allocation is contemptible, immoral, treacherous and reprehensible. It lacks any trappings of equity; it must be stopped,” DPA said.

DPA said the new market deal would alienate the patronage of the housewife, the University of Lagos , Yaba College of Technology and neigbouring institutions who patronised the market for their daily needs from petty traders at the old market.

The party recalled that when traders staged a demonstration to Alausa Government House after the market got burnt in December 2007, Governor Fashola assured them they would get back their spaces.

“This creates a brand new confusion for the dislocated traders who trusted the government to undertake repairs and turn over their shops to them as promised,” DPA said. “This turn of events is pure treachery and absolute betrayal.”

According to the party, Governor Fashola might be regarded as an efficient administrator, but he has consistently proved he is not a Governor for the masses, because “many of his policies make life harder, harsher and unbearable for the masses and the poor.”

The party pointed out that the displaced traders had found life difficult and impossible to find their footing after part of the market got burnt a few days to Christmas in 2007. Many who had stocked for Christmas lost a fortune in the mystery fire.

According to DPA, “Where will a woman selling pepper or cow hide skin delicacy (pomo) find N750,000 per square metre? Or where will the man selling underwear and skirts and the struggling youth selling second hand clothing cough up such a sum? Yet the government suffers no moral qualms sending KAI Brigade and Black Maria to arrest them at the Yaba rail-side for street-trading and hawking. This is a terrible contradiction.”

The party asked the Lagos State House of Assembly to urgently intervene in the matter and ensure that the displaced traders did not have their hopes dashed or end up losing their means of daily bread.

DPA recalled that displaced Tejuosho traders migrating to places like Mushin discovered they needed about N250,000, a rent they saw as exorbitant, which made them to endure the long wait for the rehabilitation of their burnt facility by the state government.

The party recalled that it once asked the government to investigate fire incidents at Tejuosho and other markets, as such fires fueled suspicions they were started by arsonists bent on forcing out traders that opposed takeovers by property speculators and developers.

“The demolitions, and the way the government is handling this issue, further fuel such speculations,” DPA said. “No doubt, Governor Raji Fashola will not want to be pinned with this legacy of increasing the people’s hardship through such an ill-advised move. His government must try to find a synergy between private enterprise and the greatest good for the greatest majority.”

Felix Oboagwina
Director of Publicity (Lagos State DPA)
08033327355.

Citizen Report: Popular Nigerian Home Video Comedian Kidnapped

                                                      [Nkem Owoh]

A citizen reporter in Enugu just sent in a report that popular Nigerian home video comedian,  Mr. Nkem Owoh was yesterday kidnapped by armed gunmen as he was making a journey from his Enugu base to Port Harcourt.

The kidnappers, according to the report "have already demanded a huge sum as ransom". An unconfirmed information at the disposal of chidi opara reports however put the amount at twenty million naira.

Photonews: Ken Saro-Wiwa; Fourteen Years After

 

Ken Saro-Wiwa; Writer, environmental and minority rights activist was judicially murdered on 10th November, 1995 by the then military rulers of Nigeria.

Revealed: Plan To Get Nigerian Ruling Party Chieftain Out Of Jail

                                          [Bode George]

chidi opara reports have reliably learnt that there is high possibility of review of the prison term handed to rtd. Navy commodore Olabode George and five others for mismanaging the finances of the Nigerian Ports Authority(NPA) during his tenure as a non executive chairman of the Authority by an Ikeja High Court presided over by Justice Olubunmi Oyewole. George and his accomplices have filed appeal against the judgement at the Court Of Appeal.

We also learnt on good authority that even though the prosecuting agency, the Economic And Financial Crimes Commisson(EFCC) had cast iron case against George and his cohorts, "the conviction", according to a well placed government insider, "could not have been possible if not that oga George decided to work against Mr. President's second term bid".

Olabode George was one of  the retired military officers recruited by rtd. General Ibrahim Babangida in 1998 to take over the Peoples' Democratic Party(PDP) and ensure the emergence of rtd. General Olusegun Obasanjo as civilian President. George was appointed military Administrator of Ondo state in the mid 1980s by the then military President, Ibrahim Babangida.

Knowledgeable PDP insiders told us that George helped to execute the "Obasanjo project" so well that he was consequently made the National Deputy President of the party in the South-west. He was also in the committee that handled the re-election of Obasanjo in 2003, as well as the director-general of the committee that worked for the election of President Yar'Adua in 2007.

Rtd. Commodore George, according to other PDP insiders started having problem with the present party leadership and the Presidency mid last year when it became obvious that he was being sidelined in the scheme of things, even when such schemes were about Lagos, his home state. George, according to these insiders complained severally to Obasanjo and the President, but his complaints were reportedly ignored. "At this point the man stopped complaining and decided to join forces with Babangida to work against the President's second term plan", one PDP insider revealed to chidi opara reports.

Checks in security circles in Abuja revealed that when the plot to fraustrate the President's seond term bid was uncovered, a decision was taken by the President's kitchen cabinet to "deal with those behind the plot". Top on the list we learnt were Ibrahim Babangida, Olabode George, Anthony Anenih and some former governors and ministers. Babangida was reported to have called the President to deny the plot. He is also known to have been favourably disposed to the President's second term plan ever since, "to stave off harassments".

chidi opara reports can now reveal that associates of the jailed ruling party chieftain, "have made the right contacts". It is expected that these "right contacts" would use their influences to get George out of jail through the Court Of Appeal. Members of the President's kitchen cabinet are however reported not to be well disposed to this plan.