The Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) in Oyo state Monday cautioned Governor Seyi Makinde against swearing in caretaker secretaries and members for the 68 local governments/ local council development areas in the state.
Oyo ALGON handed down the warning in a statement issued and signed by its Chairman, Prince Ayodeji Abass-Aleshinloye and made available to journalists in Ibadan.
The Oyo state ALGON Chairman in the statement stressed that doing so at this time would amount to ” clear disobedience of existing order of the Court.”
“It has come to our attention at ALGON Oyo state that the Governor is not relenting in his serial disobedience to both the judgment of the Supreme Court, and the extant substantive judgment of the Oyo state high court restraining all the actions of disband of elected council leadership, forbidding the appointment of caretakers over local councils, striking down as unconstitutional any consequential act therefrom and injunctions restraining the Governor and the Oyo state government from embarking on these threatened acts.”, he said.
Prince Abass-Alesinloye added: “It is very regrettable that this Governor,despite these judgments, in spite of repeated warnings from ALGON, distinguished senior lawyers, a reprimand and strong advisory letter from the AGF for disobeying the Supreme court, Governor Makinde continues with his trademark reckless disobedience.”
“We are informed arrangements are now concluded for his swearing in of caretaker committee members and Secretaries across our local councils. In these financially hard times when citizens are barely able to feed, and no palliatives forthcoming from the state government despite the huge donations received into the Oyo state Covid 19 fund in billions, Governor Makinde continues to balloon the state recurrent expenditure with a total of another 500 plus political appointees into caretaker committees of local governments.”
The ALGON Chairman lamented that it was unfortunate that in Oyo state, “our isolation centers have no ventilators, and life is hard for the ordinary citizen,yet it is at this time Governor Makinde is creating illegal local government work for his PDP acolytes”.
“Let no one be suprised if our dear state is unable to pay April and future salaries in view of its misplaced spending priorities, ballooning our payrolls with political appointments in defiance of court judgments. We again advise Engr. Seyi Makinde to desist from his continuing disobedience to the judgement of the Supreme Court and other Courts. “
