Court Reinstates Sacked Imo Council Chairmen, Councilors

The Federal High Court sitting in Owerri, the Imo State capital, on Wednesday ordered the reinstatement of the sacked chairmen and councilors of the 27 local government councils in the state.

The elected council offi­cials were sacked by former governor, Emeka Ihedioha, in June last year, and the chairmen in November 2019 took the Federation Account Allocation Com­mittee (FAAC), the Attor­ney General of the Feder­ation (AGF), the Attorney General of Imo State, the governor of Imo State, and 27 others to the court with a view to stopping the month­ly allocation from coming to the local government councils pending when they resume office.

When the Supreme Court sacked Ihedioha, Governor Hope Uzodinma also refused to allow them to return to office with the governor insisting that the conduct of that election was illegal and did not fol­low the local government laws.


But delivering judg­ment, Justice Tijjani Garba Ringim faulted the dissolu­tion of the councils and or­dered the state government to reinstate the sacked offi­cials “immediately”.

The judge, in the suit FHC/OW/CS/136/2019, also held that the affected local government areas without elected officials should not be funded with federal al­location.

Justice Ringim insisted that the governor had no right to “dissolve local gov­ernment officials elected by the people”.

Speaking with journal­ists, counsel to the plain­tiffs, Oba Maduabuchi (SAN), described the judg­ment as historic and a “bas­tion of democracy”.


Maduabuchi said: “To­day, we’ve made history because the governors have been consistently treating judgments of the courts with levity as they pertain to the dissolution of elect­ed local government offi­cials. Today, that has been reversed.

“From now onwards, any governor that attempts to dissolve elected local gov­ernment officials will be doing that in vain because they will no longer get a penny from the federal al­location. That’s why we are excited and happy.
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“We must commend the judge because of his brav­ery. It is the state govern­ment that dissolved and the judge had the temerity to give judgment against the state government.

“It is not every judge that can give judgment against the government of the state where he is posted.

“How can a governor wake up and dissolve local government elected by the people? Has the president ever dissolved any state? No. Why would any state governor wake up and dis­solve the local government?

“The implication of this judgment is that the local government officials should start working to­day and henceforth, any local government that is not elected should not be funded.

“This is the biggest bas­tion of democracy. When you don’t have democracy at the grassroots, nothing will work.”