The leading opposition party in Nigeria’s South-West has raised issues over what it considers the illegal change of the name of Osun State to State of Osun.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) pointed out the dangers inherent in the name change and warned both corporate bodies and individuals not to do business with the Rauf Aregbesola administration under the name “State of Osun”.

The Chairman of PDP in Osun State, Alhaji Ganiyu Ola-Oluwa, in a statement yesterday in Osogbo, the state capital, by the party’s Director of Media and Strategy, Prince Diran Odeyemi, cited a recent judgment by a Lagos High Court to justify its position. The statement noted that the court sitting in Igbosere had dismissed a charge against a 20-year-old man, David Monday, by The State of Lagos (prosecution), over what it described as none existence of the prosecution owing to the name which ought to be Lagos State.

According to the statement entitled PDP cautions Aregbe on use of “State of Osun”, “We are aware of the pronouncement of Justice Ebenezer Adebajo in which he declared that ‘Section 3 of the Constitution is headed States of the Federation. It is by virtue of this section that a State belonging to the Federation, note the use of the word ‘of,’ is named as Lagos. Thus we have Lagos State.’

“This declaration by this judge is not restricted to Lagos state as it affects all states of federation. “We noted that the judge also queried thus – ‘The application is brought by the State of Lagos. Is a State belonging to Lagos? Does Lagos own a State? Who is Lagos or what is Lagos?’

“The judged added that ‘Lagos exists by virtue of Section 3 of the Constitution and it comprises of named Local Government Areas. To say The State of Lagos is to refer in my opinion to a State that belong to Lagos. It is not the same thing as Lagos State. It is for this reason that I do not accept that the party against whom the application is brought exists.’ ”

Concluding, the statement urged Aregbesola “to digest this and have a rethink because the name ‘State of Osun’ does not exist as far as we are concerned and cannot be recognised now and in the future.” It therefore “advised contractors and corporate institution as well as individuals and the entire citizenry to disregard any document containing State of Osun as such is not recognised by the law.”

•Photo: Governor Aregbesola.

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