The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the forthcoming governorship in Ondo State, Hon. Agboola Ajayi, on Thursday tackled Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa, for setting up Transition Committees for the nullified 33 Local Council Development Areas, (LCDAs) and 18 local government areas in the state.
Speaking during a press conference in Akure, the state capital, Ajayi described the state governor’s action as a sign of disrespect to the rule of law, following the judgment of an Ondo High Court, which nullified the creation of LCDAs in the state.
The former deputy governor in the state said the constitution of the Transition Committee shows Aiyedatiwa’s incompetence, inefficiency and leadership, saying Aiyedatiwa lacks the capacity to rule the state.
He maintained that installing caretaker Chairmen in local government areas is unconstitutional and advise the Governor to respect the laws of the land and stop embarrassing the people of the state with his actions.
Ajayi said; “We are still struggling and appealing on how to resolve the inconsistency and incompetent attitude of the present government as regards the creation of LCDAs. Only for us to learn that the state governor has appointed caretaker committee members to non-existing LGs and LCDAs.
“In law, as at today, Ondo state has 18 Local Government Areas, while we felt that it’s illegal for any democratic institutions to appoint Caretaker Committee members.
“You will remember that the PDP went to court to challenge the appointment of caretaker committee but we insisted that the state government needs to conduct an election so that government can be very close to the grassroots.
“We expect them to conduct the election but to our surprise, we saw the notification of LCDAs which shows part of their inefficiency and leadership failure and we are still trying on how we can amend that.
“This morning again, we heard that they have appointed members of the caretaker committee to all the nullified 33 LCDAs and the 18 local government areas structures of Ondo state and we felt that we should call the attention of the good people of the state to it maybe they don’t know that the Supreme Court is going to nullify the process”.
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Ajayi described Aiyedatiwa’s action as the height of lawlessness and impunity for appointing Committee Chairmen in the LCDAs that are non-existent in the eyes of the law.
He said “We keep repeating that what they are doing to the local government administration in Ondo state is wrong and criminal and they should allow local government administration to be run by the people at their various local government levels.
The Supreme Court has spoken this morning and we want to thank the Supreme Court for putting final decision to this matters. Any government that is now doing otherwise, is not just killing democracy but amounts to contempt of court and that is the exactly what our governor has done.
“You would recalled also that a competent court in this state has given a verdict, nullifying the creation of the 33 LCDAs that was created by our late governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu but what we read today was that the present government has come up with their own actions.
“We are appealing to the government to stop embarrassing the good people of Ondo state, they should correct what is wrong so that we can meet the standard, they should protect the constitution, they can’t just say that what the court said is not concerned them.
“Ondo Government should please stop embarrassing us, we are law abiding, what they might have done wrong, they should go and correct it.
“If you want to provide jobs for your boys and party members, he (Aiyedatiwa) should give them the jobs that is legal. You can’t build something on nothing and expect it to stand.
“The Ondo State Government, presently has a vibrant young man as Attorney General of the state, so I want to believe that he must have advised the governor accordingly, but it’s left for the governor to listen to the advise, they must have advised him accordingly.”
NIGERIAN TRIBUNE