The sacked local government chairmen in Oyo State under the aegis of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, on Monday berated the state government over its decision to conduct the council poll barring the coming May 7 Supreme Court judgment.
Describing the decision to proceed with the election despite the pending court judgement as unwitting, the ALGON members alleged that Governor Seyi Makinde made surreptitious move of “perfecting ways to buy off the judgment.”
The ALGON members, led by Prince Ayodeji Abass-Aleshinloye, spoke at the press briefing held at their Ibadan Secretariat.
Aleshinloye, who addressed journalists on behalf of his colleagues, said the scheduled council election billed for May 15, was a premeditated fraud targeted at forcing the ALGON and other political parties in the state to participate in the poll if the Supreme Court judgment does not favour it.
He said that “We are going to boycott the election if we win and the government insists on any kangaroo election. Once the judgment favours us, we shall move to office straight. Three main reasons can be adduced for Governor Makinde’s jumping the gun by releasing election time table and proceed to implement it before Supreme Court judgment.
“Governor Makinde may have perfected way to buy off the judgment as being boasted by his political acolytes. But this may be very difficult for him to achieve because of the integrity of the bench and their precedent judgments on similar cases like ours.
“It may be an organised OYSIEC ‘come and contest’ election scam, an election advance fee fraud where many unsuspecting candidates will be encouraged to invest in election that may never hold. But like in yahoo yahoo deal, many would have been fleeced of their hard- earned money.
“The governor may be planning an executive coup against the Supreme Court judgment if it does not favour him by going ahead with the election after the judgment even if it does not favour him and his government.
“He will encourage his handpicked elected chairmen and councillors to go to court and obtain an injunction to challenge returned elected Chairmen on the basis of lapsed tenure in case Supreme Court does not make a declaratory judgment on continuation of tenure.”
He, therefore, advised political parties and candidates “not to invest in OYSIEC electoral market process which will lead to nowhere if ALGON wins at the Supreme Court on May 7. He stated that “Nobody is going to participate in any kangaroo election. None of my colleagues is going to be part of it. The party (APC) is also not going to be part of it. Our three-year tenure ordinarily expires on May 14, 2021, but it is not impossible that the Supreme Court will elongate our tenure so that we can complete our remaining two years of which we were sacked from office.”
The PDP in its reaction to ALGON’s allegations, said the latter was trying to build something upon nothing, noting that the election that brought them into office as council chairmen in May 2018 was an illegality.
The Publicity Secretary of the PDP in the state, Alhaji Akeem Olatunji, said, “What the government is doing is in order but it seems that they are ignorant of what the law says. Election is a process on its own.
“You don’t wait till the end of a tenure before you conduct an election. The tenure of the sacked council chairmen would end by May 12 as the court would decide on May 7 and election would hold on May 15. Where is the illegality there?
“By now they should have started the process of producing candidates. But, being that their party is in disarray and they are not popular, they are looking for ways of evading the election.
“Had it been they won at Supreme Court they would not have proceeded to Supreme Court. The law is on our side.
When they were conducting the election that produced them we were telling them that they flouted the constitution. Instead of conducting election into the 33 local government areas recognised by the constitution they conducted election into 58 council and LCDA. You can’t build something on nothing.”
