An Abuja-based lawyer, Vincent Adodo, has urged the National Assembly to tread with caution as it considers constitutional amendments that may include the recognition of 33 Local Council Development Areas recently created in Ondo State.
Adodo sounded this warning in response to comments made by the Governor of Ondo State, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, during the South-West zonal public hearing on constitutional review, held at The Dome in Akure on July 18, 2025.
The governor had advocated for the 33 LCDAs established by his predecessor, the late Governor Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), to be listed in the Constitution as full-fledged local government areas.
But in a statement made available to The PUNCHon Tuesday and signed by Adodo, he described the move as premature, warning that the National Assembly must not “arrogate to itself powers it does not have under the guise of constitutional amendment.”
It is public knowledge that in a judgment delivered on June 20, 2024, the Ondo State High Court sitting in Akure, presided over by Justice A.O. Adebusoye, declared the 33 LCDAs illegal, null and void for being in breach of Section 8(3) of the Constitution,” Adodo said.
According to him, the legal challenge against the LCDAs was initiated by the Akoko Development Initiative and 22 others, who sued on behalf of Akoko indigenes from the four Akoko local government areas, citing marginalisation in the allocation of the new councils.
Although the State Government filed a notice of appeal against the High Court judgment, Adodo pointed out that no Appellant’s Brief of Argument has been filed over a year later.
This, he said, prompted the judgment creditors to file a motion at the Court of Appeal, Akure, seeking to dismiss the appeal for want of diligent prosecution.
“As it is today, there are no LCDAs in Ondo State as there is no appeal properly so-called against the judgment that nullified their creation,” he said.
Adodo said. “There is also no specific order staying the judgment of the High Court. It is elementary that an appeal does not operate as a stay of execution.”
He added that Aiyedatiwa’s ongoing allocation of funds and appointment of officials into what he called “dead entities” cannot override the court’s decision.
“No act of executive allocation or political appointment can resurrect what the court has already buried,” he stressed.
“What should be done is for the appeal to be prosecuted to a logical conclusion, not to employ delay tactics to justify acting illegally,” he said.
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