The President of One Love Foundation President, Dr. Patrick Eholor has berated the Judiciary as well the Edo State Government for its plans to handpick caretakers for the local government areas.
According to the human rights activist, the Governor has no right to select anyone he likes where there to be an election to elect chairman who will manage the affairs of the LGAs.
He said its sad that despite a subsisting court order against the planned action, the government wants to go ahead with the appointments.
In a letter to the Governor, Eholor, through his lawyers stated;
“The decision to handpick, select or nominate persons not democratically elected into the Local Government Transition Council in Edo State is in contempt of the Judgment referenced above, id est, contempt exfacie curiae and amount to executive rascality. To allow this to pass and stand, will cascade the society to the Hobbesian state of nature where life was brutish, nasty and short”.
Eholor therefore appealed to Gov Obaseki to avoid soiling his hands by engaging in an act that will undermine the constitution and laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria;
“In view of the foregoing, we have our client’s instructions to respectfully supplicate and/or requisition your good self to disassociate your esteemed personality from this ignoble act and discontinue with the action or decision to handpick, select or nominate persons not democratically elected into the Local Government Transition Council in Edo State with immediate effect as there is a subsisting final judgment of court of competent jurisdiction on the subject matter hanging on the State like the sword of Damocles, in respect of which there is no pending appeal”, his lawyers have said in the letter to Gov Obaseki.
Recall that on the 16th May 2012, the Edo State High Court, through
Edo State High Court coram: Hon. Justice T. Akomolafe-Wilson declared that
“Governor of Edo State lacks the power to handpick or recommend persons not democratically elected to be screened or ratified by the Edo State House of Assembly for the purpose of appointing persons as caretaker or transition committee members to administer and/or manage the affairs of Local Government Council in Edo State”.
Eholor therefore argued that “court judgments or orders are meant to be obeyed and must be obeyed even if such order(s) is perverse until set aside by a superior court”.