Court rules State of Osun does not exist

By our reporter| An Osun State High Court sitting in Osogbo has ruled constitutionally, the name, ‘State of Osun,’ does not exist.

In a ruling on Wednesday, the court held that what is known to the country’s constitution is Osun State.

Justice Mathias Agboola, while delivering a judgement in a case brought before it by a lawyer, Mr Kanmi Ajibola, against the state government over a personal tax of N5.3m that the state Internal Revenue Service asked him to pay, said it amounted to “artistic colouration when ‘Osun State’ is referred to ‘State of Osun’.”

Ajibola had approached the court to seek redress over tax demanded from him which he said was punitive because he usually held opposing views to those of the immediate past governor, Rauf Aregbesola.

The lawyer also urged the court to declare the law upon which the tax was based as illegal since it was a law made by ‘The House of Assembly of State of Osun,’ a body unknown to the constitution.

Defence counsel, M. Popoola, had asked that the case be struck out for lack of jurisdiction.

Presiding judge, Mathias Agboola in his ruling, said lawyers should be wary of legal implications of referring to Osun State as the “State of Osun”.