Allegations of Gross Misconduct Laughable, Oyo ALGON Replies Assembly

Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan

Oyo State chapter of the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) has described as laughable and a parliamentarian comedy of error, the allegations of fraud against its members by the state House of Assembly.

The association, in a statement by its Chairman, Prince Ayodeji Abass-Aleshinloye, and made available to THISDAY yesterday, said it rejected the allegation against its members as it smacked of political partisanship and bias, describing the allegations as unnecessary comic relief, unconstitutional, illegal, null and void.

Oyo State House of Assembly on Tuesday said it had unearthed what it called duplication of projects, outrageous contract sum and abandonment of projects in local government and local council development areas in the state between May 2018 and June 2019.

But, reacting to the allegations yesterday, Abass-Aleshinloye said the allegation would not divert ALGON’s attention or the democracy-loving people of the state and all discerning Nigerians from the core issue of lawlessness, illegality and the strange dictatorship unleashed by the present administration in the state, while the Assembly was fiddling away. The association lamented that the Assembly was intimidated and later recruited into the coup against grassroots government in the state.

“ALGON Oyo State rejects the strange allegation of gross misconduct against our members, the democratically elected chairmen of local government and development areas in the state. It smacks of political partisanship and group bias. It is laughable and unnecessary comic relief. It is unconstitutional, illegal null and void.

“The blackmail this time from the parliament came too late and too little in the day and this irritation is too small to divert ALGON’s attention or distract democracy loving people of Oyo State and all discerning Nigerians from the core issue of lawlessness, illegality and strange dictatorship unleashed on the state by Governor Seyi Makinde, while the Assembly has been intimidated and recruited to be part of the coup against grassroots government in the state. The Assembly was complicit by illegally approving the governor’s hungry local termites, the undertakers called caretakers to invade and feed fat on local government councils despite our letters to the parliament to call the governor to order.

“That the parliament’s allegation of gross misconduct against us came few days after the ALGON chairman had publicly alleged the illegal hurried sales of property of councils by the illegal caretakers and also exposed the N3.5 million ‘war matching grant’ that the governor gave each of the council invaders as part of the war budget to hire thugs to attack, maim, kill and destroy local government secretariat, after elected chairmen had resumed shows the shameful complicity of the leadership of the Assembly in the series of violence unleashed on the state which unfortunately had claimed one life with some of our members wounded despite police efforts at restoring peace, law and order.

“The least expected of the parliament is to investigate these substantiated weighty allegations by ALGON and the renewed orgy of violence that is enveloping our hitherto peaceful state due to the multiple illegal actions of a lawless governor,” the association alleged.