Prof Wale Oladipo holding PDP National Secretary position illegally – SW Zonal PDP Legal Adviser

The newly elected Southwest Zonal Legal Adviser of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP), Barrister Ojo Williams has questioned the
legality of the continuous occupation of the office of the National
Secretary of the party by Prof. Olawale Oladipo, declaring that “since
the January 11, 2013 judgment of Federal High Court presided over by
Justice Abdul Kafarati was nullified by the Appeal Court on November
6, 2013, he ought to have vacated the office of the PDP National
Secretary.”

Ojo Williams said in a release issued in Oshogbo, Osun State on
Tuesday, that it was time that things were done rightly in the party
by telling Prof Oladipo that he should stop parading himself as the
PDP National Secretary since the Appeal Court judgment, invalidating
the Federal High Court judgment that paved the way for his assumption
of office was yet to be set aside by a superior court.

He said it was on record that the Court of Appeal, in the judgement
read by Justice J.T Toh, held that the lower court acted in error by
granting the declarative reliefs sought by the plaintiffs since the
former national secretary (Oyinlola) was not a party to the suit that
nullified the South West congress that produced him.

Ojo Williams, who is also from Osun State like Prof Oladipo said with
the Appeal Court judgment of November 6, 2013, which reinstated
Oyinlola as the National Secretary, and Oyinlola’s defection to the
All Progressives Congress (APC), the Deputy National Secretary of the
PDP was the rightful person to have assumed the office of the National
Secretary in an acting capacity.
He said Prof Oladipo did not participate in the National Convention
that produced the present National Working Committee (NWC) members.
Rather, he was installed consequent upon the court judgment sacking
Oyinlola, and since the same court already declared Oyinlola’s sack
illegal, there is no legal justification for his (Oladipo) occupation
of the office of the PDP National Secretary. This is more so that the
Appeal Court judgment had not been set aside and execution of the
judgment was not stayed.

The Zonal Legal Adviser went further to state that in another suit
urging the court to compel the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) to recognise Prof Oladipo as the National Secretary
of the PDP, counsel to INEC, Vilba Kintai told the court on Wednesday,
June 25, 2014 that the commission “does not recognize Prof Oladipo who
was nominated by the South West Caretaker Committee as the national
secretary of the PDP because the party’s leadership had not produced
any court order to that effect.”

Questions that must therefore be asked are; has INEC changed its
position? Has the Appeal Court judgment invalidating the Federal High
Court judgment that removed Oyinlola and paved way for the emergence
of Prof Oladipo been set aside by a superior court or its execution
stayed? In the face of these legal hurdles, can Prof Oladipo be said
to be validly occupying the office of the PDP National Secretary?
Certainly the answer is No.

We therefore call on the PDP not to allow any illegality to taint its
National Convention by Prof Oladipo's cancerous intermeddling.