Senator Olamilekan Adeola, popularly known as ‘Yayi’, who represents Lagos West Senatorial district, has been taken to court over his choice to run for reelection in Ogun West. ayokinews.com reports
Adeola, who has represented Lagos in the National Assembly for the past 11 years, is seeking re-election from the Ogun West Senatorial District ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The lawmaker’s decision to go from Lagos to Ogun while still holding the mandate of the people of Lagos West has angered residents of Ogun West, who claim the Senator is not from Ogun state.
Despite the controversy, Adeola was proclaimed the winner of the APC primary held in Ilaro on Saturday, securing the party’s Senatorial ticket.
Adeola won the primary in a landslide, defeating the incumbent lawmaker, who received zero vote in the election.
However, Adebiyi Tajudeen, Olajumoke Ibrahim, and Muideen Akintade, three dissatisfied politicians in Ogun, have petitioned the Federal High Court in Abeokuta for an interlocutory order barring Adeola from participating in the electoral procedures running up to the 2023 election in Ogun West.
They claimed that the legislator entered the Ogun West contest without having spent the requisite number of years in Ogun State, as entrenched in the Nigerian constitution.
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They further stated that the Lagos lawmaker, known as YAYI, did not quit as a Senator for Lagos West before running for another state.
According to them, the decision is an intentional marginalization of the people of Ogun West Senatorial District and Ogun State in general, as well as an infringement on their democratic rights.
The plaintiffs alleged that Adeola’s action is “undemocratic, flirtatious, disenfranchising, unlawful, abnormal, and demeaning to the political character of the people of Ogun West and Nigeria at large” in a motion filed on Friday.
They maintained that Adeola’s emergence as the Ogun West APC’s candidate is a “blatant infringement and flagrant breach” of the Yewa/Awori franchise.
The plaintiffs further prayed the court for an order of interlocutory injunction, restraining Adeola and INEC “from taking a further step in allowing the first defendant to participate in the general electioneering process leading to the 2023 general from Ogun West Senatorial district or any other place in Ogun State pending the hearing and determination of the originating summon.”
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