More than a month after the conduct of the local government election in Oyo State, one of the duly elected councilors is yet to be sworn in.
Olusegun Awakan, who was said to have won the Ito/Ofiki Ward 5 councillorship election, is yet to be recognized by the Oyo State Indepenedent Electoral Commission, OYSIEC.
Ofiki town, the protesters told www.oyoinsight.com, is in ATISBO South Local Council Development Area (LCDA).
This is just as leaders of Oke Ogun area of Oyo State yesterday protested the alleged relocation of electoral ward and the refusal of OYSIEC, to recognise the duly elected councillor for the ward.
They issued a seven-day ultimatum to OYSIEC to re-allocate the substituted Ward 5 earlier located to Ofiki community instead of Ago-Are.
The indigenes declared as illegal and a breach of the Electoral Law, the substitution of Ito/Koso Ward 5 in ATISBO South LCDA with headquarters at Ito in Ofiki for Isale Aganna with headquarters in Ago-Are.
They noted that the failure of OYSIEC under the chairmanship of Mr. Jide Ajeigbe to reverse the ward to Ito/Koso with headquarters in Ito in Ofiki will push the residents to institute a legal action against the commission and its chairman.
Ofiki community’s spokesman Sunday Olaewe, who addressed reporters yesterday in Ibadan, the state capital, accused OYSIEC chairman of raping democracy by shifting the already allocated Ito/Koso Ward 5 in Ofiki to Isale Aganna in Ago Are to satisfy the wish of his wife, who is said to be an indigene of Ago Are.
Olaewe, who was accompanied by a former Ogun State Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Akogun of Ofiki, Mr. Niyi Ogungbola, as well as other community leaders, said it was annoying that Ito/Ofiki Ward 5, which had a councillorship candidate, Olusegun Awakan, was reallocated to Ago-Are.
He recalled that till date, OYSIEC had not recognised Awakan as the duly elected councillor for the area, after he had been certified and given necessary screenings in line with the commission’s stipulations.
