Battle for Ondo LGs: PDP playing double game?

By Jackson Udom

Mimiko The leadership of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is currently in the news because of what has been described as double standards on issues which have to do with constitutional interpretation as it affects the running of local governments in the country.

Specifically, the party is being accused of double standards on the ongoing controversy surrounding the dissolution of the local government shortly after assumption of office via the Appeal tribunal judgement which sacked the former governor, Dr Segun Agagu and declared him as the duly elected governor.

The PDP-led government at the centre has equally been accused of applying different methods to two similar situations which is being seen as an attempt to stand the law on its head so long as it satisfies their unbridled desire to cling to power at all levels.

It will be recalled that shortly after his assumption of office on May 29, 2007 as the governor of Oyo State, Otunba Adebayo Alao- Akala had announced the dissolution of the local government administration in all the 33 local government councils in the state. He was said to have based his decision on the fact that no election took place in the state that would have warranted its inauguration.

Arising from this therefore members of the Labour Party(LP),in particular condemned the stance of the PDP.

The contention in political circle is why is the PDP which closed its eye to the Oyo situation now challenging a similar action which it endorsed almost two years ago?
Even though the matter is already in court to determine the correctness or otherwise of the dissolution,political analysts who have been keeping tabs on the Ondo dissolution argue,that “ that the Presidency sent in police to the state and soldiers to Okitipupa Local Government to take over local government offices is to say the least a direct and undisguised attack on the principle of federalism and this coming after the dissolved chairmen had gone to court to challenge their dissolution, which is in line with the spirit of the rule of law, leaves a very bad taste in the mouth”

It is also argued in some quarters that the desire to cancel State Electoral Commission was once proposed to create a monolithic state that is driven only from the centre. This, analysts opined,” is hardly what a highly plural federal society like Nigeria requires”

That some people believed to be financed by PDP loyalists in the state, broke into the council secretariats and looted the place of documents which would have helped the state in uncovering monumental fraud which might have taken place in the councils is being alleged to be a grand design to cover up corruption at that level of governance.

Sunday Tribune reliably gathered that “there is a direct relationship between the Ondo State Contract Assessment Committee which started its job a couple of days before troops were rallied to unleash terror via the local government takeover bid”. He also disclosed that “there are indications that mind-boggling acts of corruption, including payment of billions of naira for job not done, are being unveiled.

According to sources, “let us not forget so soon that the action of the Governor has been well laid out in his address to the State when he said that there was a court injunction on November 1, 2007, against holding the election. It was obtained by the Minority Leader in the House of Assembly and nine other members.

The Agagu government immediately appealed the judgment. While the injunction of the Lower Court was subsisting, and without waiting for the Appeal Court to pronounce on the case filed by his government, Agagu hurriedly organised an election.

Chief Felix Ayo, a public affairs analyst, while featuring on a Cable TV current affairs programme said, “what Governor Mimiko dissolved can therefore, to all intents and purposes, not be what the constitution and the local government law of Ondo State recognise as a legally constituted council administration, but a patently illegal contraption. As the elected governor, Mimiko has the duty to return Ondo State to the path of the rule of law.

This is one of the things he promised the people of the state that made it possible for him to rein in violence and the tendency at self-help during the 22 months that Agagu exercised the power he did not have. He cannot afford not to deliver on that promise otherwise, it would be difficult getting them to be on the path of peace in future”.

However, Sunday Tribune reliably gathered that in all of these, President Yar’Adua has refused to be dragged into the imbroglio .“President Yar’Adua is not a party to all the shenanigans of the PDP. The entire process is said to be driven by the rump of the old Agagu government which determined to put a stop to the work of the Contract Assessment Committee.”

Investigations also revealed that some PDP members of the Ondo State House of Assembly whose election had been invalidated by the Elections Petitions Tribunal and are awaiting Appeal Court pronouncement, as well as some PDP House of Representatives members from Ondo State whose elections had been invalidated by the Tribunal are behind the crisis

Surprisingly too, against the Rules of the House of Representatives that issues before the law court would not be discussed on the floor of the House, there was an attempt by some members of the House who are sympathetic to the plight of their members from Ondo State to debate the issue, which was already in court.

Sunday Tribune specifically gathered that the Mimiko-led administration in the last one month in the state is faced with critical challenge of ensuring that “these PDP hawks do not succeed in getting the support of the President in their drive towards illegality and anarchy in Ondo State and the need for the governor to continue to be persuasive when he begs the people not to react to these serial acts of provocation.