Sophia Michaels
Wale Adedayo, the Chairman of Ijebu-East Local Government Area of Ogun State, has revealed that he would challenge his suspension in court next week.
It was reported that Adedayo, in a letter addressed to a former governor of the state, Aremo Olusegun Osoba, on Sunday, had accused Abiodun of diverting statutory federal allocation to local governments in Ogun State for two years.
The LG chairman had also claimed that the governor has refused to give the local government chairman 10 per cent of the state’s internally generated revenue due to them.
An allegation Governor Abiodun has blatantly dismissed, saying instead of diverting, his administration instead augmented the federal allocation for local government chairmen to carry out their duties.
On Thursday, the councillors in the Ijebu East Local Government Area of Ogun State announced the suspension of Adedayo as the Chairman of the Local Government.
Reports revealed that seven councillors suspended the Adewale for three months over alleged maladministration and financial mismanagement.
On Friday, the embattled LG was grilled by the Department of State Service (DSS).
In a chat with The Punch, Adedayo said the councillors have no power in the law to suspend him, stating that he is challenging their action in court next week.
He alleged that it was their failure to convince him to retract the letter that led to what he described as the kangaroo suspension.
The Ijebu-East council boss added that he was forced to retract his claim against the governor.
He said: “Yes, that is exactly what is happening. It was after I refused that they started all this kangaroo suspension. There is no way I’m retracting it.
“Yes, I’m challenging them in court next week over the suspension. The councillors have no such power either in the state laws or in the Constitution to do that. What you have is the removal of the chairman, and once you don’t impeach, you don’t have the power of suspension, and there was no due process before that was done.
“At least they should have set up a committee and called me to come and defend myself against the allegation. Nobody invited me for questioning. You can’t just sit down and pass judgment without hearing from the other side. I’m sure that is why they came with policemen yesterday (Thursday). More than 100 policemen came to my local government area. Everybody was just running helter-skelter. If I had been there, I know that I would have been rough-handled or arrested. I just avoided the place,” he stated.
Adebayo, who insists Governor Abiodun must be probed, noted that “I have not withdrawn my letter. They should do their job. There is no way they will investigate and not come to my local government area, and I’m ready to answer any question. I don’t think any local government area in Ogun State has done so much. All of them are complaining.
“They complain privately; they are just afraid to speak up publicly. If you talk to them off-record, they will give you more than what I am saying. They are doing that (prostrating themselves before) the governor because they are afraid of losing their jobs, and I don’t blame them. We are different individuals, and as I said, backgrounds are different.”
Speaking about if Osoba had responded to his letter, he said there hadn’t been any formal answer yet.
He said, “There was no formal response from him, but the responses I have been getting are informal. For me, as a member of the All Progressives Congress, the party has been destroyed by Mr. Governor because when people who are elected into office in the local government areas are not able to do what they are supposed to do for the people, how can we win elections?
“The last election was terrible. The Peoples Democratic Party won in my local government area, and that should not have happened. Some time ago, there was going to be a riot in my local government area over a simple thing as small as a transformer. We couldn’t provide a transformer for over three months, and the opposition bought a transformer for the residents, and when we later brought ours, the people said they didn’t want it. What had we been doing for three months that they didn’t have light? This was the primary reason why we lost so badly in the last election because the local government had not been funded.”
