A civil society group, the Osun Democrats for Democracy, has scolded the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, Lateef Fagbemi for assuming the role of a court on the Osun Local Government crisis, affirming that “the AGF is not a court of law and cannot stop election nor interprete court rulings.”
The group, in a statement signed by its Legal Adviser, Adewale Fowora and made available to journalists on Thursday, said Fagbemi as a former lawyer to the former Osun State governor and now Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Mr. Gboyega Oyetola is an interested party in the ongoing political crisis in the state and should therefore excuse himself.
“We were shocked that a supposed Chief Law Officer of the Federation has decided to speak on matters on which he is an interested party as a lawyer to Mr Gboyega Oyetola and from which he should have recused himself. He is not only a biased assessor, but he has no power to stop an election nor clarify a court judgement.
“Only a court of law can stop an election, not an Attorney General. Secondly, only a court can interpret its own rulings when there are differences of opinions about a court’s judgments. Thirdly, the court system has its procedure for enforcing its own judgment and not through self-help, which the Attorney General openly supported.
“When there are disputes about the meaning of a court judgement, parties are expected to approach the court for interpretation. The AGF has no constitutional mandate to assume the powers and functions of the courts,” the group stated.
It went further: “Much more worrisome is the biased refusal to mention the APP judgement which sacked the APC council aspirants. The APP judgement was not the subject of appeal at Akure, and so the appeal ruling at Akure has nothing to do with the subsisting APP judgement.
“We are also worried at how the AGF muddled up his narration. Who made information available to his office? Why can’t he approach the originating courts for verified judgements? Why is a whole Attorney General openly supporting self-help apologists who took the law into their own hands.”
It, however, advised the Osun State government to go ahead with the election on Saturday, saying the AGF statement is a political action that has no foundation in law.
“AGF is not the court, and he can not exercise the powers of the court,” the group insisted.
