Ondo Assembly asks govt to withhold council funds
From Niyi Bello, Akure
THE Ondo State House of Assembly yesterday ordered the Federal Ministry of Finance to "henceforth, until the resolution of the crisis in Ondo councils, withhold all funds that should accrue to the coffers of the 18 local councils in this state."
The Assembly described this as "a move to prevent a downward slide to lawlessness and anarchy which is staring us in the face" over the decision of the state Governor, Dr. Rahman Olusegun Mimiko, to constitute caretaker committees for local council administrations "without recourse to the law of the land. "
The legislature passed a motion by voice vote, in which it "condemned in strong terms, the decision of the state governor" and directed that anybody that is found among the newly-inaugurated chairmen "to have spent a kobo of tax-payers' money, would have a case to answer with the anti-graft agencies."
Declaring the Wednesday inauguration as "an illegal act which this Hounourable House condemns in totality", the Assembly also directed the Inspector-General of Police to, through the State Commissioner of Police, "take adequate security protection of all the council secretariats and government property therein to prevent them from falling into unauthorised hands. "
The lawmakers appealed to Mimiko, "to come back to the path of legality to avail himself of the peace that could be engendered through mutual co-operation between the legislative and executive arms of government instead of causing this avoidable state of confusion."
The state governor, following the verdict of an Akure High Court last Wednesday which declared the December 15, 2007 local council polls that produced the former chairmen as illegal, inaugurated the new political leadership in the 18 local councils of the state.
Although the judgment, delivered by Justice Nelson Fadoju said the governor had no power under the law to unilaterally dissolve council administrations, it held that the process that produced the removed chairmen was flawed because the 150-day period to prepare for election after the composition of the electoral body was not adhered to.
While Mimiko and his new Labour Party (LP) administration argued that there was nothing wrong "in taking over all the power structures in the state", the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the House of Assembly had opposed the governor's moves.
Yesterday's motion by the Assembly climaxed a running battle over the legality or otherwise of Mimiko's March 4 dissolution of the mainly PDP council leadership, a decision he took after being declared by the Court of Appeal as the duly elected governor of the state on February 23, after a 22-month legal tussle.
A motion moved by Henry Akinsoyinu (Ile-Oluji/Oke-Igbo) and seconded by Otito Atikase (Ilaje 1), had sought the support of the other lawmakers "to declare that the state governor erred by inaugurating caretaker committees without following due process of the law."
The lawmakers argued that the governor's action was a clear violation of Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which invests the power of council administration on state legislatures and Section 12 (1 and 2) of Ondo State Local Government Law which stipulates that composition of membership of council leadership must be supported by two-thirds majority of the Assembly.
At the end of a two-hour intense debate, with intermittent table-banging and shouting matches among the lawmakers who were divided along party lines, the House resolved to "protect the integrity of the legislature and the sanctity of the Constitution by rising against attempts to turn Ondo into a lawless state."
Although several LP lawmakers in the Assembly argued that the quoted sections of the law could not be relevant in the instant case because "there was no dissolution in the first instance as the initial exercise was carried out against a restraining injunction from a competent court of law", their voices were drowned by those who argued that in whatever circumstance, the House has a role to play in the composition of council leadership.
Meanwhile, all the removed chairmen and their councillors have appealed against the Wednesday judgment at the Court of Appeal sitting in Benin.
Former Chairman of Akure South local council and leader of the state branch of the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON), Adedayo Omolafe, said the legal team of the dissolved council administrators filed the papers yesterday.
