Oyo State Chapter of the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) has said that the Attorney General of the State remained non-challant on the rape of constitution despite many letters forwarded to him. To properly advise the government to desist from trampling on the judgement of the Supreme Court.
This is contained in the speech delivered by the Chairman, Oyo ALGON, Price Ayodeji Abass Aleshinloye on Thursday at the New Year Get-together and review of Year 2019 activities held at the ALGON house in Ibadan.
The Speech Delivered goes thus:
SPEECH DELIVERED BY PRINCE AYODEJI ABASS-ALESHINLOYE, CHAIRMAN, ASSOCIATION OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA, ALGON, OYO STATE CHAPTER ON THE OCCASION OF HER NEW YEAR GET-TOGETHER AND REVIEW OF YEAR 2019 ACTIVITIES HELD AT THE ALGON HOUSE, IBADAN ON THURSDAY 16TH JANUARY, 2020
Good day, the Chairman of today’s gathering, respective party leaders, our invited guests of repute, members of this noble Association, gentlemen of the press, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for coming and joining us here today. We are pleased to welcome those of you that have been with us for sometime now. We want to wish everyone of us a happy and prosperous New year, 2020.
Just before we get started, I will like to on behalf of myself and other members of ALGON express our profound gratitude to all of you who have been with us through thick and thin in our political struggle for democracy and emancipation, most essentially members of the Fourth Estate of the Realm, the Press. We comnend many of you including the on-line media for your sense of fairness in reporting the issues as they developed.
Importantly, we consider this gathering imperative purposely to appreciate the good efforts of everybody who are democracy lovers and to appraise our activities in the year 2019, all in a legitimate bid to reclaim our mandate and also to tell you what we do to defend the rule of law we all sworn to uphold as it is enshrined in the constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria, as far as the issue of Local Government Administration is concerned.
I will like to briefly summarize what has transpired in the last couple of months when power in the State changed hands and how it affects our legally occupied offices as Local Government Chairmen and Councillors.
You will recall that shortly after the inauguration of Engr. Seyi Makinde as the Governor of Oyo State on the 29th May, 2019, he announced through his then yet to be sworn-in Chief of Staff then, Chief Bisi Ilaka the dissolution of the democratically elected Local Government Councils and Local Council Development Areas, LCDAs. It will be recalled that we came into office through elections which were conducted during the regime of Senator Abiola Ajimobi.
By Chief Ilaka’s illegal declaration, we were directed to handover to our respective Heads of Local Government Administration, HLAs or the most senior Directors in our Local Government Areas and Councils. The order which we never and we will never comply with because it was illegal and unconstitutional.
We considered the steps taken by the Governor as illegal, undemocratic, a violation of the rule of law and also contempt of a subsisting court injuction against the purported sacked. In his defense, the State Government said the Local Government election that was conducted by the last dispensation was illegal because it contravened court order. The government run by Engr. Seyi Makinde has been asked since then to produce and give evidence of the so-called “Court Order” they repeatedly claimed restrained the conduct of local government election organized during the tenure of Senator Abiola Ajimobi, but all this was to no avail. The order only exists in their imagination.
I will like to tell you today as ever before, that the continuous disregard of the Supreme Court judgement and High Court judgement that forbid dissolution of democratically elected Local Government functionaries by the Governor shows clearly a flagrant disobedience and abuse of rule of law by the government led by Engr. Seyi Makinde.
As if were not enough, the Governor in his usual characteristics, displayed yet another contempt to highest court of the land with the swearing-in of the outlawed caretaker committee to forcefully take over our seats that were not vacant by law.
With this and other related reasons, we want to reiterate our stand and position by continuously saying NO and reject these serial illegalities in its entirety which we consider as a crude assault on our democracy and a rape of our constitution, especially when the appeal filed by the State Government against the High Court judgement is yet to be determined.
With all our hues and cries, Governor Seyi Makinde went ahead to inaugurate caretaker chairmen for the councils, not even minding the petition written to Present Muhammadu Buhari , leadership of National Assembly and all well meaning Nigerians by both the ALGON and Oyo State Chapter of APC.
We want to use this gathering to let the whole world know that there is never in the history of this country, Nigeria, where a Governor will wield such an enormous power to the extent of holding to ransom the executive offices in all the local government councils for more than six months.
Also, in line with our resolutions to defend democracy and our mandate freely and fairly given by the electorate, we vowed to resume our duty posts and which we did on the 17th December, 2019 when we directed all Chairmen and Councillors to go back to their respective offices in order to defend democracy and rule of law but in a peaceful manners.
In another development, we equally advised the Local Government employees, including HLAs, DAGs, DFAs and other council employees not to allow themselves be implicated by the illegal administration and operation unleashed on our local councils. But despite this warning, it has come to our knowledge that some local government top officials are conniving to siphon the council’s money, we want them to know that all these shady deals are being monitored and well documented accordingly.
We also at different times warned and reminded the Accountant General of Oyo State , Ministry of Local Government and Council Officials across Local Government Councils, that the Joint State/ Local Government Account is under the legal regime established by law and the court judgements only operatable by the elected Local Government Chairmen whose election have neither been voided by any court nor by any law. It pleases the government of the day to brandish rule of law,but only as a shield of disobedience, while the Governor himself wields the sword of a despot in despise of the very constitution he swore to uphold. As you all are aware, many states who took Governor Makinde’s initial route of disobedience have since corrected themselves and returned the elected Council chairmen to office except Oyo state. It is regrettable that the Attorney General of Oyo state has remained non-challant and mute on this rape of our constitution despite many letters forwarded to him to properly advise this government to desist from trampling on the judgment of the Supreme court. He has chosen to rather submit the rule of law and his constitutional role as legal adviser to government, to ignorant political advisers to the Governor who continue to attempt to mislead the public, lie against the judiciary and despise the constitution.
We are equally aware that recently, the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation has issued an advisory directive to the Attorneys General of all the 36 states including Oyo state, requesting they all comply with the decision of the Supreme court outlawing illegal dissolution of Local Councils and which set aside caretaker appointments over local councils. The HAGF by his letter demanded compliance with the Supreme court by a restoration of democratically elected Council Chairmen and Councillors in all councils in the states. Uptill now Governor Makinde and his government have continued to act illegally and contrary to democratic norms. We reiterate that we shall not fail to continue to fight this illegality prone, unjust and deceptive administration until Governor Makinde submits to, and obeys our constitution, court judgments and the rule of law, the continuing despise of which is an impeachable offence against him.
Lastly, on the topical issue of Operation Amotekun. Let me state here that ALGON Oyo State supports Amotekun as we have been doing to create and support any move to adresss meaningfully the security of life and property as this is the fundamental objective and duty of government at all levels because without security there cannot be governance or development.
We however wish to appeal to South west governors to subject the operation of Amotekun to democratic control and management of communities and local government authorities as elected representatives of the grassroots for Amotekun not to be abused and misused. The governors should also look at all genuine complains and suggestions to make Amotekun generally acceptable so as to achieve its set goal of providing complementary security to all.
ALGON Oyo State will soon set up a technical committee to study the situation and make recommendations to the governors on it.
Once again, we wish you bountiful success and great accomplishments in the new year.
We want to thank you all for your attention and support for the cause of Justice. We are hopeful that together, we shall fight this illegality to the logical conclusion.
Aluta continua, Victoria acerta!
