An Oyo State High Court sitting in Ibadan on Thursday upheld the September, 2010 election that produced Comrade Victor Asaolu as the National President of the Association of Nigeria Theater Arts Practitioners (ANTP).

Delivering ruling in a case brought before it by the Incorporated Trustees of the ANTP, Justice Bolaji Yussuf also restrained Prince Jide Kosoko and Dele Odule from conducting another election to elect new national officers of the association. Justice Yussuf ruled that the 2005 harmonized and approved constitution of the association which was adopted in compliance with an order of a Federal High Court that the 1996 and 2001 constitutions of the association should be harmonized, was the authentic legal document of the ANTP.

The court maintained that an association like the ANTP cannot operate with several constitutions, and that Chief Lere Paimo acted in accordance with the dictates of the 2005 constitution of the union by dissolving the National Electoral Committee, and setting up a new one to conduct the 2010 election.

The Judge maintained further that since the harmonized 2005 constitution of the ANTP stipulates four years single term for national officers, Asaolu remains the National President of the association, having won the 2010 election. However, the premises of the Ring-Road, Ibadan, Oyo State High Court complex was besieged by hundreds of ANTP members from across the country, who came to show their solidarity for elders of the association, including Chief Jimoh Aliu, Lere Paimo and Asaolu.

Speaking with newsmen shortly after the ruling, Asaolu said with the judgment, the lingering leadership crisis rocking the ANTP was over, just as he expressed his readiness to work with the aggrieved individuals. In his own reaction, Jimoh Aliu noted that God had used the court case to teach members of the ANTP some lessons, saying with the message of the whole matter is that God is greater than any individual.

Also speaking on the ruling, Lere Paimo thanked God for allowing truth to prevail at the end, commending members of the association for standing beside him during the period of crisis.