By Ikechukwu Nnochiri, Ilorin
THE Supreme Court on Friday nullified the local government election conducted in Osun State in 2008, just as it sent all the 30 local council area chairmen in the state packing.

The apex court equally faulted the Osun State Electoral Commission, OSSIEC, over its non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2006 in conducting the said election.

The five-man panel of Supreme Court justices, who presided over the matter, unanimously held that it was wrong for the state electoral commission to issue a 21- day notice to parties for the conduct of the council polls, stressing that the Electoral Act 2006 specifically stipulated a minimum of 150 days election notice.

The judgment was prepared by Justice Saifullahi Murtaka Coomassie but delivered by Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar.
The Osun State Independent Electoral Commission and the state attorney general had gone before the apex court to challenge the decision of an appellate court sitting at Ibadan which earlier voided the said election.

The appellate court had ab-initio faulted the propriety of the election on the basis that it was statutorily illegal for OSSIEC to jettison the 2006 Electoral Act and rely on section 10 of an electoral law made by the Osun State House of Assembly to conduct the election after 21-days notice it issued to the political parties.

The appellate court judgment was given on the basis of an suit filed before it by the Action Congress of Nigeria, the All Nigerian Peoples Party, ANPP and the National Conscience Party.