By GBENGA ARIYIBI
ADO EKITI—THE Appeal Court Panel, yesterday, dismissed the case instituted by former Ekiti State Governor, Segun Oni against the October 15, 2010 judgment that removed him from office.

The basis of the dismissal was that Oni should have raised the issue before the Court of Appeal judgment of October 15, 2010.

However, Oni said he would appeal against the ruling.

Speaking through Mr. Lere Olayinka, his Media Assistant,  said: “The basis for the dismissal of the case was that we should have raised the issue before the Court of Appeal judgment of October 15, 2010. However, in the grounds we raised in our application, we stated that the facts which necessitated the application were not known to us until after the October 15, 2010 judgment.

How then could we have raised issues that were not known to us? Therefore, since we have the right of appeal, as guaranteed by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, we have resolved to appeal the judgment at the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land. Any moment from now, our Notice of Appeal will be filed.

“Members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, especially in Ekiti State should therefore not despair because we are confident that God will use our case to set landmark precedence in the history of the Nigeria Judiciary. We also wish to commend the judiciary for at least giving us the opportunity to be heard, as against the wish of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and its functionaries, who never believed that rights of Nigerians to seek redress on any matter in court, and duty of the court to hear the matter must be respected.”

When the judgment was delivered, members of the  ACN, who were hanging within the vicinity of the court, immediately  besieged the court premises like a swarm bees and started chanting anti-PDP songs.

The  court  premises  became charged, which forced the police and the State Security Service that had  cordoned off Basiri-Fajuyi road, located in front  of the Ado Ekiti High Court, where the Appeal Court was located to fire teargas canisters to disperse the crowd.

At the morning session, the   ACN members converged on the  end of Fajuyi  Park’s roundabout  and exchanged serious altercations with their PDP counterparts,  who were at the Basiri end of the court premises.

The Policemen and the SSS operatives, led by the Commissioner of Police, Mr Olayinka Balogun and  Director of SSS, Mr Samuel Tamuno stationed their men  in-between the two opposing forces to forestall breakdown of law and order.

Over twenty  police trucks and an Armoured Personnel Carrier, and over two hundred  policemen and SSS operatives were stationed at the court’s gate to cage the rampaging party members that besieged the court premises.

All the newsmen, lawyers and party chieftains had to rush back to the courtroom to avoid  being caught in the web of sporadic teargas  smoke that rented the air .