The National Industrial Court, NIC, of Nigeria, sitting in Akure, the Ondo State capital, has granted an order restraining the governor of Kwara State AbdulRazaq AbdulRahman, from forcing the state Auditor-General to hand over the duties of his office.
Kwara State is under the jurisdicial division of the Akure Industrial Court.
The Auditor-General, Mr. Samuel Omoniyi Adeyeye, has dragged Governor AbdulRazaq, Speaker of Kwara State House of Assembly, the Kwara Stae House of Assembly Public Accounts Committee Chairman, the Kwara State Civil Service Commission and the Kwara State Head of Service, HoS, before the court, asking for among others reliefs, that his earlier purported removal from office was grossly unconstitutional and a breach of his constitutional rights.
Adeyeye had in his suit, marked NICN/IL/01/2022, filed in his behalf by Mr. Joseph S. Bamigbiye, SAN, on February 28, 2022, asked that his removal from office of Auditor-General by the defendants in his suit was a breach of Section 127 (1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, and be declared that such was in consequence null, void and of no effect.
He also asked that his letter of removal from office of the Auditor-General of Kwara State by the Chairman, Civil Service Commission, dated 28th January, 2022 was incompetent, null and void.
He prayed for the order of the court declaring that he remains the Auditor-General of Kwara State without a loss of his full salary, emoluments, privileges and entitlements.
However, Adeyeye also approached the court, asking for an order of interim injunction restraining the governor from removing him from office or forcing him to hand over the duties of his office as Auditor-General of the state, pending the determination of his Motion on Notice, which has been granted by the industrial court on March 2.
Hearing in the suit has been fixed for Thursday, 10th March, 2022.
