Plato in his book, The Republic, referred justice as the most fundamental basis of ordered social life.  To him justice is the basis for peaceful social existence and giving to each other what is due.

The prevailing reactions which have continued to visit the case of the embattled acting chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Kwara State chapter, who suffers ‘Palace Coup de’tat’ from his kinsmen owing to his allegiance to his political godfather at the national secretariat of the party, is the current bold of contention.

In furtherance to this position of a “just society,” Plato maintained that “Every society requires three functions to achieve harmony, namely production, security and political rule.

“These necessitate three aptitudes in the populace- appetite, courage and knowledge-and three roles- workers, soldiers and rulers. Justice entails that society systematically determines the endowment of each member and ensures that they are placed in each of the three functions according to their endowments.

“Persons of appetite work and produce society’s means of material existence, those with courage defend society while the knowledgeable rule.”

Meanwhile, going by the submission of the chairman of the caretaker committee of the party in Kwara State, Dr Sa’ad Omoiya, the ACN acting chairman, Mr Kayode Olawepo lacks these characteristics propelled by the great philosopher.

Omoiya claimed that Mr Olawepo lacked courage and charisma which are the major features of a good leader, adding that “he looks tattered and his person cannot lead us to victory in any election”.

Investigations revealed that the sudden sack of Olawepo is not unconnected with the seeming leadership rivalry between the national publicity secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and the governorship candidate of the party in the 2011 election, Dele Belgore (SAN) over who gets what come 2015.

It was further learnt that Olawepo had the backing of Lai Mohammed, a one-time gubernatorial candidate of the defunct Alliance for Democracy, AD, which made his tenure as acting chairman of the party in the state to last over two years instead of the stipulated three months.

While the party unilaterally appointed the secretary of the caretaker committee, Mr Toyin Ayinla, to replace Olawepo, it also urged party members to support the new leadership and assured the public of the party’s commitment “to lead the collective yearning for good governance and continuous struggle against tyranny of the few which is militating against the state’s human and infrastructural development.”

A statement signed by the deputy chairman of Kwara ACN, Committee of Local Government Area Chairmen, Chief Ayanda Fajenyo, and a member of the state Caretaker Committee, Alhaji Raimi Jimoh Idera, said “Contrary to what was contained in the media that Mr. Kayode Olawepo had been suspended and removed as the chairman of Kwara State chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, on framed up allegations by a few members of the state caretaker committee, the purported removal exists only in the imagination of the movers of that motion and a former gubernatorial candidate of the party who is their sole sponsor.

“The desire to remove our party chairman in Kwara State is being nursed by a former gubernatorial candidate of the party and his cronies using the media to achieve what they could not achieve in the real sense of it. For the avoidance of doubt, the same faceless people announced the dissolution of the party structure at a ramshackle rally on March 28, 2013 only to use the same structure to remove a legally appointed official of the party.”