Funmi Olaitan, Ibadan

Former governor of Oyo State and Osi Olubadan of Ibadanland, Senator Rasheed Ladoja, has petitioned chairman of National Judicial Council (NJC) and Chief Justice of Nigeria(CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, over the refusal of Justice Diran Akintola to hear an ex parte application filed by his counsel on the Olubadan chieftaincy law review crisis.

It would be recalled that Ladoja and another member of the Olubadan-in-Council, Mr Lekan Balogun, had filed suit M/317/2017 against the constitution of a judicial commission of enquiry by Governor Abiola Ajimobi to, among other things, review the process for the emergence of the Olubadan of Ibadanland.

The suit, an originating summons along with the ex parte application, was filed on May 26, one week after the panel headed by Justice Akintunde Boade was inaugurated and asked to submit its report within four weeks.

In the acknowledgment copy of the petition bearing the stamp of the office of the CJN and made available to journalists in Ibadan on Saturday, Ladoja, who alleged that the judge had been compromised, said, “the only way to regain public trust in the Judiciary is for disciplinary action to be taken against Justice Akintola.”

The 10-paragraph petition signed by Ladoja read in part, “The ex parte application came up for hearing on 2nd of June, four days after the event we were seeking to restrain. Surprisingly, Justice Akintola refused to hear the application, but rather directed our solicitor to serve the ex parte application on the governor and Justice Boade (retd).

“He thereafter adjourned the motion to 6th of June, a day after the commission would have started sitting.

“On 6th of June, Justice Akintola still did not hear the said ex parte application. He also refused our counsel’s application to grant an interim order that status quo be maintained pending the hearing of the said application.

“To worsen the situation, and to show the said Judge was not working according to the oath of his office and that he had been compromised, he adjourned the motion to 23rd June.

“My Lord, four weeks from 19th May ends 16th June. In essence, the said Judge gave the commission all the time it needed to finish its assignment in order to defeat the outcome of our case.

“This is a great injustice and a bad reflection of the Judiciary. The only way to regain the public trust in the judiciary is for disciplinary action to be taken against Justice Akintola and a recuse direction to him from the case”.

Before his petition to the CJN, the Osi Olubadan had petitioned the Oyo State Chief Judge, Justice M. L. Abimbola, asking for the withdrawal of the matter from Justice Akintola whom he accused of being out to frustrate the case.