The Incorporated Trustees of the Association of Local Government of Nigeria on Monday appealed the judgement of a Federal High Court in Abuja, which affirmed that Kolade Alabi, the immediate past president of the association is qualified to be president of the association.

The Board of Trustees also filed a motion seeking the stay of execution of the judgment delivered by Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court Abuja, last Friday.

The association last year, had dragged Alabi and seven others to court. In the suit, they had maintained that Alabi was not qualified to be president having not emerged from one of the 774 Local Government Councils in the country.

In their originating summons filed by Bartholomew Opara, maintained that Alabi is not eligible to be ALGON president as he was not a local government chairman as contemplated by the 1999 Constitution, the Constitution of ALGON and a Supreme Court decision which had touched on the dispute.

Opara held in his process that Alabi had been removed by ALGON’s National Executive Council in 2019 but he kept parading himself as president.

He urged Justice Inyang Ekwo to uphold the removal of Alabi by NEC and perpetually restrain him from further parading as such, among other reliefs.

However, delivering judgment in the suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1609/2023, Justice Ekwo dismissed the suit for want of jurisdiction.

According to him, the subject matter of the case and claims of the applicants are matters that the ALGON, by its general assembly and by applying the provisions of its constitution, can resolve.

” In other words, the subject matter of this case belongs in the realm of internal affairs of the association which no outsider, not even the court can be invited to interfere or resolve,” he added.

Dissatisfied, the plaintiffs filed a Notice of Appeal and also an application seeking a stay of the judgment pending the hearing and determination of the appeal.

The appeal is predicated on two grounds wherein the appellants argued that “the learned trial Judge erred in law when he delivered judgement marred with outdated technicality in Law and lack of fair hearing to all parties in the suit”.

They also claimed that the learned trial judge erred in law when he delivered his judgement not in accordance with the provisions of Section 36 (1) of the Constitution.

According to their lawyer, Bartholomew Opara, who spoke with journalists in Abuja, shortly after filing the two motions, “On the judgement, Kolade was the 8th defendant, the dismissal was based on the 8th defendant. Meanwhile, the first defendant is Ministry of Finance, the 6th defendant is IG of Police, the 7th defendant is DSS, and the first to 7th defendant did not file a thing at the court, but the 8th did, that is not a fair hearing”.

They, therefore, prayed the appellate court to allow the appeal and set aside part of the lower court’s delivered allegedly not in compliance with Section 36(1) of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, in the motion on notice, the applicants argued that there is a need to preserve the subject matter of the Appeal from being dissipated by the execution of the judgment of the Federal High Court.

Besides they claimed that if the judgement is not stayed and the judgement is executed there is the possibility of rendering the outcome of the appeal nugatory.

Also speaking, the member representing South South, Hon. Ugo Gabriel, who spoke on behalf of the BoT chairman, Hon Shaban Ohinoyi, disclosed that they and the entire citizenry have a duty to protect the resources of the people.

While recalling that ALGON in 2013, got a judgement against the Federal Government for the refund of $3.1bn, he accused some leaders of ALGON of conniving with some people to dissipate the funds.

“The ALGON Board of Trustees wish to inform the general public that we are not here to witch hunt any individual, group or persons nor organisations but to ensure the effective management of local government funds in the country.

“The Algon BoT will continue to uphold the sanctity of the Constitution of the Federal Government of Nigeria and that of ALGON. The ALGON BoT will ensure the office of the President ALGON and other executive positions are strictly the preservation of elected Local Government Chairmen”, he stated.