Sacked chairmen of the 68 Local Governments and Local Council Development Areas in Oyo State parading themselves as Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) have been described as frustrated and frightened by the impending retribution for their looting of local government funds.
The Chief Press Secretary to Governor Seyi Makinde, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, stated this in a statement he signed and made available to newsmen on Thursday, noting that the sacked chairmen had been behaving like bulls in a china shop ever since they got wind of the oncoming retribution for their looting of the taxpayers’ funds.
According to the statement, the recent gale of baseless accusations and lies from the camp of the sacked chairmen against Governor Makinde were in response to the ongoing forensic probe of local government funds by the Oyo State House of Assembly, which is exposing the monumental heist carried out by the sacked APC council chairmen.
The statement added that no matter the amount of gibberish statements and insults issued by the sacked ALGON, justice would catch up with them.
The statement read in part: “The attention of the Media Office of the Governor of Oyo State, Engineer Seyi Makinde, has been drawn to some ludicrous and unfounded claims by some politicians who branded themselves as members of the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON,) Oyo State Chapter.
“In the statement, these elements parading themselves as ALGON members claimed that the recent message sent by the Permanent Secretary, Oyo State Local Government Service Commission to the 33 local government chairmen in the state in respect of the planned construction of the State Secretariat of the Local Government Service Commission amounts to “stealing by tricks.”
“These claims sound shocking, especially because they are coming from those who have served as chairmen, albeit illegally, because if those who have served as chairmen of local governments do not appreciate the need for a befitting secretariat for the Local Government Service Commission, then one cannot pity the level of their ignorance and buffoonery.”
The statement further noted that it was the height of mischief and bad politics for any opposition figure to badmouth a laudable project, which the immediate past administration woefully lost sight of despite its unwarranted claim of having built a modern Oyo State.
It said: “We are appalled that the so-called ALGON members could not understand the need for the third tier of government in Oyo State’s to have office accommodation, after it had remained as tenants in the complex of the State’s Water Corporation for over 35 years.
“The emerging fact, however, goes to confirm the fact that the said ALGON members need education and information on this matter. The State’s Local Government Commission has responsibility for over 50,000 serving and retired workers, whose daily needs cannot be subsumed under the banner of directionless politicking. The Local Government Pension Board is another of the agency housed under the commission, whose task of keeping the retired workers of councils in good state cannot equally be overemphasised.
“It needs to be stated that Osun State, which was excised from the Old Oyo State had built its Local Government Service Commission Secretariat since the administration of Chief Bisi Akande, which was between 1999 and 2003.
“If the Secretariat of the Service Commission is needless and nebulous, the previous administrations in Oyo State, which allocated a prime land for the purpose of building a Secretariat would not have done so.
“Instead of apologising to the good people of Oyo State for the monumental failure the administration they served in recorded in the area of infrastructure in the state, the sacked council bosses are
