By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
Former local government chairmen and councillors in Oyo State sacked by Governor Seyi Makinde in 2019 on Wednesday, raised the alarm that the governor has threatened to deal with them.
Addressing a press conference in Ibadan through the former Chairman, Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) in the state, Prince Ayodeji Abass-Aleshinloye, the Chairmen alleged that the governor threatened to deal with them in his media chat on Saturday December 23, 2023.
According to the former chairmen, the governor is threatening them over their unpaid entitlement, adding, that he paid only N1.5bn in two batches in 2021 and 2022, out of the N4.8bn he was mandated to pay by the Supreme Court.
The sacked chairmen lamented that rather than obeying the Supreme Court order mandating Oyo State Government to pay them their entitlement, the governor has been busy threatening to deal with them
“His Excellency Oluseyi Makinde promised to deal with us in his media chart on Saturday 23/12/ 2023. We are not in doubt that His Excellency is the Governor of Oyo, but, we wrongfully assumed that he was elected to govern and not to deal with any of the citizens of the State”, he said.
The former ALGON Chairman added, ” Surprisingly, His Excellency’s priority now is to deal with everyone who is legitimately seeking redress for a perceived
wrong.His Excellency promised to deal with the Princes of Ogbomosho and now the Ex LG Chairmen”.
” We only hope this act of dealing with us doesn’t include killing any one of us or harming any one of us. We wish to say with all emphasis that we are proud to say that each and every one of us grew up with a training to fear Almighty
God, respect the law and to always follow due process’
They pointed out that ” the court that ordered His Excellency to pay our money is the Supreme Court of Nigeria and not any other court. So, His Excellency’s contention that he is going back to Supreme Court is a clear deception and deliberate misinformation”.
On the plight of the sacked Chairmen, Prince Alesinloye disclosed that no fever than 27 of their members have died in the struggle, stressed that they died as a result of the lack of money to take care of their health challenges owing to non-payment of their entitlements .
“This media briefing is very important as it concerned the recent media chart by Governor of Oyo state, Engineer Seyi Makinde. We need to address some issues. We have no skeleton in our cupboard. 27 of us that we are in this struggle together with us have died.
” I am talking about former Chairmen and Councillors. Some of them could not get money to take care of their health challenges and this resulted into their death. We have been in the struggle since four years ago.”
Prince Alesinloye stressed, ” Our lawyer is taking every necessary step, we will explore all legal means. We have our own technical advisers too. Our entitlements is N7.2b, they pleaded and we said that we will collect N4.8b in the interest of the state. They only paid N1.5 in two batches. One in 2021 and one in 2022. Since then, they have refused to pay.”
