His party men had initially taken umbrage at the delay in announcing the names of members of the Caretaker Committees for the Local Governments in the state. Many of APC members had expected that as soon as the last challenge against his election was cleared by the Supreme Court, Governor Abiola Ajimobi would pick the Caretaker Committee and set in motion government at the council level, even though by unelected men. The partymen must have resolved to settle for that as job for the boys even if the real council poll is yet to hold. The lawmakers have finished the screening of the committee members but they are yet to take the final decision on the list. Meanwhile, having sent the list to the House of Assembly for ratification, now, opposition Accord Party has moved to another phase in its battle against the governor. Accord says rather than Caretaker Committee, there should be election to pick substantive council bosses to run the affairs of the 33 Local Government Councils in the state. Yes, that’s what the constitution stipulates, but most of our state chief executives are doing just the opposite. Governor Ajimobi has n’t conducted LG election since he has been on the saddle for five years now. Accord, in a recent statement issued and signed by the state’s Publicity Secretary of the party, Dr. Nureni Aderemi Adeniran, described as flimsy the excuse that litigation between the dissolved members of OYSIEC and the state government was responsible for the delay in conducting council poll.
According to the party’s spokesperson, the issue in question before the court has nothing to do with the conduct of the local government election but rather on the payment of entitlements and emoluments of the aggrieved members of the state Independent Electoral Commission which the Ajimobi-led administration deliberately refused to pay.
The party also faulted in its entirety the statement credited to Mr. Yomi Layinka, citing Section 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) to justify the illegal act of the state government. Dr. Adeniran pointed out that the section 7(1) of the constitution only guaranteed the existence of democratically -elected local government and there is no place in the constitution where provision was made for caretaker committee to run the councils.
“The power granted to the state to legislate on the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of the local councils is not in any way an absolute power of arbitrariness,” he said. But the big question is when will the Local Council poll hold in Oyo?
