The battle for the control of the ruling All Progressives Congress in Ondo State has now shifted to court, as party members loyal to the sacked Chairman of the party, Mr. Isaacs Kekemeke, have filed a suit challenging the removal of their principal.
Kekemeke was removed last June as the party’s state chairman, following months of intra-party acrimony that found him in the camp of a governorship aspirant other than Rotimi Akeredolu, who is now the governor.
Appointed to replace him is the party’s vice chairman, Mr. Ade Adetimehin, who now assumes the position of acting chairman.
But in a suit filed before a Federal High Court in Akure, the state capital, two party chieftains, Messrs Gboyega Adedipe and Desmond Dejuola, are asking the court to declare Kekemeke’s removal as illegal and one that did not follow proper procedure.
In the suit filed through their counsel, Olugbuyiro Akinola, the plaintiffs, who are asking the court to sack Adetimehin and reinstate Kekemeke, joined party officials like Abayomi Adesanya, Saka Yusuf Ogunleye and Badmus Rasheed, and also, the State Executive Committee of the APC, the APC at the national level, and the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The aggrieved party members approached the court, to determine, among others, having regard to the provisions of Article 21(B)(vi)(d) of the state’s party constitution, which is duly approved and registered with the INEC, whether a few officials from the state’s exco could constitute themselves into an adjudicatory body over complaints or allegations from the same set of people.
The litigants further demanded to know if the jurisdiction of the investigative panel set up by few officials of the party at the state level to hear and determine issues arising from complaints, and allegations from same party against the ousted chairman were not ousted and constrained.
The plaintiffs stressed that the court should determine if the panel that tried allegations levelled against Kekemeke should have sat outside the state as against the party secretariat in Akure.
As such, they are praying the court to declare the purported Ondo State Executive Committee meeting of the APC held on 1st of June, 2017 as “unconstitutional, null and void, same having been convened and held in contravention and violation of the provisions of Article 21, 25 and 2 7 of the party’s Constitution 2014 as amended.”
They further asked the court to declare “that the purported assumption of adjudicatory jurisdiction of first instance by few officials of the Ondo State Executive Committee of the party, pursuant to the purported meeting of the 1s t of June, 2017 as unconstitutional, null and void.”
Above all, the plaintiffs sought an order of perpetual injunction restraining Adetimehin from parading and offering himself as either acting or substantive chairman of the Ondo State Executive Committee pursuant to the purported meeting of few officials of the Ondo State Executive Committee of the party held on the 1s t of June, 2017; and that the purported decisions of the panel set up further to the purported meeting purportedly removing the chairman of the party from office be declared as a violation of the party’s constitution.
