PDP, APC bicker over Oyo LG bosses’ sack
THE opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo State are at daggers drawn over the sack of council chairmen and planned appointment of caretaker chairmen by Governor Seyi Makinde.
PDP described the sacked chairmen as mere noisemakers who wanted to keep benefiting from illegal conducts.
In a statement by its publicity secretary, Akeem Olatunji, Oyo PDP said the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) members, who were raising issues about Makinde’s proposed composition of caretaker chairmen as swimming against the tide of public opinion in the state.
According to the PDP, there is every need to reconstitute the leadership in the councils, noting that such step will be in the right direction and in satisfaction of the yearnings of most residents in the state.
“As a party, the PDP wishes to tell the governor to ignore the latest rants of the sacked illegal council chairmen on the planned appointment.
“The sacked chairmen claiming to still be members of ALGON in Oyo, despite having been sacked legally, had attacked Governor Makinde over a reported plan to appoint caretaker chairmen for the councils,” the party said.
PDP also maintained that the former chairman’s rant was medicine after death, because the circumstances that led to their sack were different from what they portray to the unsuspecting public, as they got into office through illegality and wanton disobedience to court order.
On Sunday, Oyo ALGON had decried the planned appointment of caretaker chairmen for the 33 councils the governor.
The chairman, Ayodeji Abass-aleshinloye, described the plan as tales by moonlight on grassroots democratic governance. But yesterday, Oyo APC said that the latest development signaled the return of brigands to the state.
A statement made available to newsmen in Ibadan by its publicity secretary, Dr. Abdulazeez Olatunde, read in part: “It is very unfortunate that brigands and usurpers are back in government in Oyo State.
“Our attention was drawn to the cacophony of falsehoods by the PDP in Oyo in their ill-advised attempt to spin lies as truth for the public.
“While the uninformed might be deceived by this latest PDP rant, let them be reminded that the people of the Pacesetter State are better informed than they think.
“First, they claimed that the council elections conducted by the Abiola Ajimobi administration was illegal for their conjured reasons. The simple question to ask them is, which court of law has declared the election as illegal?”
ALGON, however, described any plan to appoint caretaker committee chairmen to the third tier of government as an invitation to anarchy.