DON'T BLAME JUDICIARY FOR YOUR WOES, AKINTOLA TELLS SOUTH-WEST PDP

A legal luminary, Chief Adeniyi Akintola, SAN, has expressed shock over the comments credited to some members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South-west, blaming the judiciary for the recent losses suffered at the Appeal Court.

Akintola, who wondered why the party would want to use the judiciary as its scapegoat, declared that it never won any elections in the South-west in 2007 in the first instance.

The PDP had in quick succession lost the governorship seats of Ekiti and Osun States formerly occupied by Olusegun Oni and Olagunsoye Oyinlola respectively to Dr. Kayode Fayemi and Rauf Aregbesola of the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) at the Appeal Courts sitting in Ilorin and Ibadan, a development the party described as the handiwork of the judiciary.

Recently at the South-west stakeholders meeting of the party held at the ancient Mapo Hall, which was attended by President Goodluck Jonathan, chieftains of the party expressed sadness over the development and called on President Jonathan to look into the matter.

Governor Adebayo Alao Akala who was the host of the meeting had in his welcome address described the court victory for the opposition ACN as fake, while the party Chairman in Ondo State, Tayo Dairo said, 'the efforts of the judiciary to put South-west out of PDP control should not be allowed to stand,' among several other commentaries at the meeting.

But Akintola, while speaking with journalists at his Ikolaba GRA residence in Ibadan, described the comments of the PDP chieftains as uncalled for. He said, 'anybody blaming the judiciary for the fate of the ruling party in the South-west must either be mischievous, ignorant or down-right foolish.'

His words: 'The truth of the matter is that the ruling PDP never won election in the South West and they knew it. Everybody knew there was no election in the South-west in 2007 but Obasanjo wanted everybody to be in the mainstream by-fire-by-force and even the confessions of both Chief Obasanjo and one of the governors in the zone at different fora have shown that they did not win any election so anybody blaming the judiciary must be up to something else because the judiciary is there holding the scale, the balance for everybody.'

He recalled an encounter with one of the members of the House of Representatives from the zone just before Patricia Etteh was made the Speaker of the House where Obasanjo was quoted as telling the members of the House of Representatives from the South-west that, 'did you win any election? Answer me, did you win? We put you there, we used all the influence we have; you think you were elected because of your personality? I put you there, I used the police, the army, everybody, the INEC to put you there and you are complaining. It is the same way I put you there that I' m putting Etteh.'

Akintola also disclosed that one of the governors in the South -west had to speak in the same vein to the local government councils' chairmen when they complained about deductions from the councils' allocations, telling them, 'you are complaining that we are taking your money, it is that part of the money that we are using, did you win any election? Can you handle AC?'

'You can't handle them but you know the AC people lack human relations, so the traditional rulers that are complaining, we use part of the money to shut their mouth, the police and other stakeholders that are complaining, we use part of the money to shut their mouths,' the Ibadan-born lawyer disclosed.