Oyo LG Chairmen can work with Makinde ― ALGON Chair

Following Monday’s Ibadan high court ruling that restricts the governor of Oyo state from truncating local government councils, Chairman, Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), Oyo state chapter, Bosun Ajuwon has asserted that local government Chairmen are not averse to working with the administration of governor-elect, Mr Seyi Makinde.

Going by the Justice Aderonke Aderemi ruling which held that dissolution of democratically elected council Chairmen in 33 local government councils and 35 local council development areas were in conflict with section 7(1) of the 1999 constitution, the local government Chairmen are expected to remain in office till May 12, 2021.

Speaking with Nigerian Tribune, on Tuesday, on the ruling which upheld their three years tenure as elected local government Chairmen, Ajuwon held that though their party leaning differed from that of the incoming Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led government, what was of utmost concern was delivering good governance.

On loyalty to the incoming PDP led government despite emerging on the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ajuwon posited that loyalty was secondary, but that their stewardship to their constituents and not their party was paramount.

“Our loyalty is to Governor Abiola Ajimobi 100 per cent because you have to realise that we were elected on a party platform. The incoming government also has its own party, but immediately you are voted in, it becomes governance, not the party.

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“The concern is now what you want for your people to have. You will give an account of your stewardship not to your party but to the people of your local government. Why can’t we work with Seyi Makinde? Seyi Makinde is a human being who knows administration. He is not a lion or a leopard.

“He is there to administer and those at the local government are also there to administer governance. The priority of any politician is what they will do for their people. Even if they truncate the current local government administration, Seyi Makinde will not import people from abroad to work at the local government.

“In fact, he may even be engaging those who decamped from the APC to his party. Are they not people from Oyo state? Loyalty is secondary, while what you want to do for the masses is primary,” Ajuwon said.

In the same vein, Ajuwon stressed that granting local government financial autonomy would end the tendency for state governments to usurp the funds and their constitutional functions.

Meanwhile, spokesperson of Oyo governor-elect, Mr Dotun Oyelade, in a conversation with Nigerian Tribune, has described the decision of the local government Chairmen to seek a court injunction to uphold their tenure as unwarranted and evidence of jitteriness.

“The decision of the APC to go to court in the first place was jittery, recklessly hasty, unwarranted and a disastrous preemptive move. Even political apprentices should do better than that,” Oyelade said.