Bisi Ilaka, chief of staff to Seyi Makinde, governor of Oyo State, has said that the caretaker chairmen who are to be appointed before this month’s end won’t stay long in office.
The offices had became vacant following the sack of council chairmen in May 2019 by Makinde.
OYOINSIGHT.COM had reported plan by the current administration to appoint caretaker chairmen for the 33 local government areas and 35 sole administrators for local council development areas, LCDAs.
According to the Oyo-born politician, who spoke in an interview with Nigerian Tribune, “their tenure won’t be that long because we will have elections.”
Ilaka, who said that he understands the agitations of politicians because the local government is the first tier of governance, added that the appointment of caretaker chairmen is imminent.
Hear him: “Really, the governor can choose whoever he wants to choose but he said he wants it to be inclusive; he wants the party leaders to be part of that decision making process. Otherwise, he can send a list to the Assembly tomorrow but he hasn’t had the time to sit down, federal constituency by federal constituency, local government by local government to interrogate the choice of the people. This is because we don’t want a situation whereby somebody in Oyo, Ogbomoso, Igboho says some people in Ibadan just wrote the list and imposed people on them. We want politicians to air their opinions on the list for us to make a decision.
“If I am in Igboho, it is easier for me to see my local government Chairman than to come to Secretariat, Ibadan. The announcement of caretaker Chairmen will happen this side of Christmas hopefully,” he explained.
He also spoke about the sacked chairmen who are in court to challenge the governor’s action.
“Those chairmen are gone for good. However, we are a law abiding administration; we will toe the line of the court. No proper elections were held and if they claimed they held them, they claimed to have held them in areas not known to our constitution. They said they had the election in local government areas and local council development areas, how did they come about that. These are issues that the court will make pronouncement about but I am sure justice will be on our side but we have a settled intention to forge ahead.”
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