Seriki Adinoyi in Jos
Former council chairmen in Plateau State, whose tenure was truncated by Governor Simon Lalong, have flayed the judiciary for conniving with the state government to unnecessarily delay judgment in the matter, noting that justice delayed is justice denied.
He said it was for similar reasons that President Mohammadu Buhari said he has lost trust in the judiciary.
The ousted Chairmen, who were elected in February 2014 for a three-year tenure under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) had their administration truncated in July last year when they were sacked by the Governor.
The Chairmen, who immediately approached the federal High court in Jos to seek redress, have since then waited endlessly to obtain justice over the matter.
But speaking with journalists in Jos yesterday on the matter, former chairman of Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) and Chairman of Barki Ladi Local Government Area, Dr Emmanuel Loman expressed concern that the much awaited ruling on the case had dragged on for too long.
He said: “The last time we were told that the date of the ruling on the matter will be communicated to us, and that has been over two months now, and we’ve not heard from the court.”
He insisted that the Supreme Court judgment which forbids state governors from truncating the tenure of elected council officials in their domain and appointing transition committee members in their place still stands, and wondered why it would take the court handling their case more than one year before delivering judgement on a matter that had since been settled by the highest court of the land.
Loman, who vehemently lamented the undue delay, said “I suspect a connivance between the state government and the judiciary to delay judgment on the matter unnecessarily until such a time that their three-year tenure will elapse and pave the way for government to hold fresh elections into the council areas.”
