A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Aare Afe Babalola, has said the Kwara State Governor, Alhaji AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, lacked the powers to review the Supreme Court judgment on the land dispute involving Offa and Erin Ile in the state.
Babalola, who said no individual could review the judgment of any court, said, “I was the one who handled the matter in 1971 before Justice Funsho Daramola Panel of Inquiry and we won.
“Later, the Supreme Court, the highest judicial body in the land, gave favourable judgment to Erin Ile on the same matter in 1973.”
The legal icon spoke in Ado Ekiti on Saturday while responding to complaints by a delegation from Erin Ile that the Kwara State Government had refused to implement the Supreme Court judgment and had even set up a committee to review the land dispute.
Babalola said, “Nobody, no matter how highly placed, can review what the Supreme Court had said. That can’t happen. I am personally interested in this case, because I handled the case ab initio and by practice and convention, I am part and parcel of the Erin Ile community.”
The senior advocate clarified that he handled the boundary dispute in 1971 and that the apex court affirmed that a place named ‘Kere Ipinle’, a boundary between the two feuding towns, belongs to Erin Ile.
The spokesman for the Erin Ile delegation, Muideen Bello, who lauded Babalola for ensuring justice for the town, expressed regret that some powerful forces were working against the implementation of the apex court’s verdict, saying, “It is very unfortunate that the Supreme Court could be this debased.
“Powerful people are blocking the implementation of the judgments we got in 1973 and 2018. This shouldn’t happen in a democracy.”
The Secretary, Frontiers Club, Erin Ile, Ibrahim Adeola, described the constitution of the review committee by the governor as a desecration of the judiciary, as he accused a top member of the federal cabinet of working hard to scuttle the implementation of the court’s pronouncement.
