No fewer than 16 registered political parties in Kogi State have dragged the state government to court for alleged reconstituting local governments without recourse to the democratic process of election.
The political parties are UPP, Action Alliance, Advance Congress for Democrats, Alliance for Democracy, Citizen Popular Party, Hope Democratic Party, Kowa Party and Labour Party.
The others are Fresh Democratic party, Peoples Democratic Party, Independent Democrat, New Nigeria Peoples Party, Unity Party of Nigeria, Peoples Democratic Movement, Young Democratic Party and Peoples Party of Nigeria.
Their originating summons, signed by counsel to the political parties, Williams Aliwo, dated May 18, was made available to newsmen in Lokoja on Wednesday.
They joined the Kogi State Government, the Attorney-General of Kogi State, the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Attorney-General of the Federation as co-defendants.
The applicants contended that the state government contravened Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution as amended by reconstituting the 21 local governments on May 6 without recourse to elections.
They want the court to declare the reconstitution unconstitutional, unlawful, wrongful, null and void.
They also urged the court to declare that the purported reconstitution “is not recognisable for purposes of enjoying financial patronage of the Federal Government through the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.”
They urged the court to direct the Accountant-General of the Federation to stop any allocation or any kind of financial resources to the councils until they were properly and democratically reconstituted.
They also sought an order directing the Kogi State Government to reconstitute local councils in the state by democratic process.
The originating summon was supported by a 33-paragraph affidavit deposed to by Iliyas Badanga, the state Chairman of the United Progressive Party.
They want the court to determine whether the state government was right in reconstituting the councils and whether the action was democratic.
The other issue was whether the councils could be granted financial allocations in view of the anomalies associated with the constitution.
In their motion on notice, the political parties urged the court to restrain the respondent from recognizing the reconstituted councils.
NAN. [myad]
