Breaking News: Ondo Gubernatorial-Candidates Criticize Aiyedatiwa Over Transition-Committees

Breaking News: Ondo Gubernatorial-Candidates Criticize Aiyedatiwa Over Transition-Committees

Governorship candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Hon Agboola Alfred Ajayi, and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Otunba Bamidele Akingboye, have berated Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa for setting up Transition Committees for the 33 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) and the 18 local government areas.

Ajayi, a former deputy governor, said Aiyedatiwa didn’t know that the Supreme Court would nullify the process.

Ajayi, who praised Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling on local government autonomy, said the law presently recognised 18 local government areas.

He said it was leadership inefficiency and leadership failure that made Aiyedatiwa not conduct local government elections but opt to appoint transition committees.

He said: “In law, as it is today, Ondo state has 18 Local Government Areas.We expect them to conduct the election but the next we saw was the notification of LCDAs and that was part of their inefficiency and leadership failure.

“This morning again, we heard that they have appointed members of the caretaker committee to all the nullified 33 LCDAs and the 18 local government areas structures of Ondo state.

“We keep repeating that what they are doing to the local government administration in Ondo state is wrong and criminal. They should allow local government administration to be run by the people at their various local government levels the Supreme Court has spoken this morning and we want to thank the Supreme Court for putting a final decision on this matter.

“Any government that is now doing otherwise is not just killing democracy but amounts to contempt of court and that is exactly what our governor has done.”

“You could recall also that a competent court in this state has given a verdict, nullifying the creation of the 33 LCDAs that was created by our late governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu but what we read today was that the present government has come up with their own actions.

“And we are appealing to the government to stop embarrassing the good people of Ondo state, they should correct what is wrong so that we can meet the standard, they should protect the constitution, they can’t just say that what the court said is not concerned them.

“Ondo Government should please stop embarrassing us, we are law-abiding. What they might have done wrong, they should go and correct it. If you want to provide jobs for your boys, your party members, he (Aiyedatiwa) should give them legal jobs. You can’t just put something on us and you expect it to stand.”

Akingboye, on his part, urged Aiyedatiwa not to commit any illegality by recognising what the court declared as illegal, null, and void.

Otunba Akingboye said the action of Governor Aiyedatiwa was capable of plunging the state into a needless crisis

He called for the dissolution of the board of the Ondo Independent Electoral Commission (ODIEC) over its inability to conduct local elections since 2023.