Sacked political office holders set to enforce N3bn judgement against Ekiti state government.

The 16 local government area chairmen and councillors in Ekiti State, who were disbanded in 2010 during the first term of Governor Kayode Fayemi, are now making moves to enforce a N3bn judgment which they obtained against the state at the Supreme Court in December 2016.

The apex court had upheld the appellate court’s decision nullifying their disbandment by Fayemi and ordered that they be paid their salaries and allowances for the remaining two years they would have spent in office.

In a bid to enforce the judgment, the sacked LGA chairmen and councillors, through their lawyer, Mr Chino Obiagwu (SAN), obtained an order of the Federal High Court in Lagos to attach Ekiti State Government accounts in the Central Bank of Nigeria and all commercial banks in the country for the purpose of taking the N3,075,741,478, which the Supreme Court awarded in their favour. But Ekiti State, through its Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr Olawale Fapohunda, appeared before Justice I.N. Oweibo to stop the move.

In a further and better affidavit deposed to by a litigation officer in the office of the Ekiti Attorney General, Owoeye Opeyemi, the state government urged the court to set aside the order empowering the plaintiffs to garnish the state accounts. Opeyemi described the N3bn being claimed by the sacked LGA chairmen and councillors as fictitious and bogus, contending that Ekiti State was not carried along when the sacked LGA chairmen hired a chartered accountant to arrive at the sum.

The state said with a debt profile of more than N155bn, there was no way it could “sustain the bogus (N3bn) claim of the judgment creditors and allowances.” But the sacked LGA chairmen and councillors, through Obiagwu, have urged the judge to reject the plea by Ekiti State Government.

After entertaining arguments from Obiagwu and Fapohunda on Monday, Justice Oweibo fixed May 13 for ruling.