Controversial Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ekiti State, ( PDP) Dr Tope Aluko, has alleged that the warrant of arrest by Chief Magistrate Court in Ado Ekiti against him was done in error.
Aluko, had in a motion on Notice number MAD/1ocm/ 2016 , filed at the Ado Ekiti Magistrate Court and dated February 10, 2016, sought the
order of the honourable court vacating and or set aside the warrant of arrest issued against defendant.
The motion was supported by two-paragraph affidavit deposed to by Barrister Ayodeji Daramola.
The defendant(Aluko) predicated his plea on following grounds: that the court lacks the jurisdiction to entertain the application and that the application of the complainant is defective and incompetent, that the application was a flagrant abuse of court process and that there is no prima facie case of perjury against him before the order was handed down.
Chief magistrate Adesoji Adegboye , had on February 3, 2016 granted an order , compelling the police to bring Aluko to Court to answer to charges of Perjury slammed against him by the state government.
Aluko, was alleged to have recounted the statement earlier made on oath during the trial of the election of Governor Ayodele Fayose at the Election Petition Tribunal, where he served as a principal Witness to the Peoples Democratic Party in a case instituted by the All Progressives Congress.
Also addressing newsmen yesterday, principal counsels to Aluko, Barristers Niran Owoseeni and Wale Abimbola from the Law Firm of Niran
Owoseeni and Co, described the Warrant of Arrest issued by a Chief Magistrate Court against their client as a serious judicial error that
needed to be reversed to preserve the integrity of the judiciary.
He said it was rather curious that the court could go ahead and issued a warrant of arrest when there was no valid and existing charge
against Aluko , saying the court must have been misled under this circumstance.
Owoseeni added that Aluko didn’t swear to any affidavit to counter the statement alleged to have been made during the election petition trial
in Abuja, where he purportedly said in an affidavit he deposed to that the said election was free, fair and credible .
The lawyer described this as a strong point that had vitiated the competence of the court to adjudicate on the motion ex parte brought by government to seek for the warrant of arrest order.
“We are in a new era, this jackboot or catch him approach won’t work. Things must be done properly in accordance to the law. The Ex parte
order brought by the state government by Barrister Kolapo Kolade was filed on February 3 and the order was granted by court the same day,
this is curious.
“The perjury allegation against Aluko was still at the real of speculation, so, the order doesn’t comply with the provision of the law and this makes the court incompetent in the first instance, or may be the DPP had read the law upside down”, he said