Justice Ladiran Akintola, a Judge of the High Court of Oyo State, Ibadan Division, has petitioned the court that he should be recognized as one of the sons of the late Premier of the defunct Western Region, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola who died in 1966. In a related development, counsel to Samuel Ladoke Akintola’s family, Olaseni Oyefeso challenged the locus standi of the claimant on the grounds that Justice Ladiran Akintola could not have validly sued as a “beneficiary in the estate of late S.L Akintola” reckoning that was the subject matter submitted to the court for determination.
Justice Akinteye however dismissed the application and consequently, an appeal was lodged at the Court of Appeal Ibadan against the decision. The suit has been adjourned to 16th March 2016 for trial despite the pending appeal. Meanwhile the second defendant in the suit and daughter of the late Premier, Dr. Abimbola Akintola, said she and her brother, the first defendant in the suit, Bashorun Abayomi Akintola {both of whom are SL Akintola’s surviving children} had forwarded a petition to the Chief Judge of Oyo State requesting a transfer of the suit to another judge of the court on the grounds of “likelihood of bias.”
Dr. Abimbola Akintola,a former Minister of State for Finance, further said in the event the claimant(Justice Ladiran Akintola) does not refrain from conducting his case on the pages of newspapers, she and her brother will not hesitate to petition the National Judicial Council alleging misconduct by a High Court judge. According to Dr. Abimbola Akintola, their father Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola was an upright man, a devout Christian and an advocate of faithfulness in marriage and was only married to her late mother, Chief Faderera Abeke Akintola who had all his children: Omodele (deceased), Abayomi, Abimbola (herself), Ladipupo (deceased) and Tokunboh (deceased).
