By Dayo Johnson

FOR seven consecutive years  activities in all the 18 council areas of Ondo state were at it’s lowest ebb. No thanks to non conduct of council elections by the state government under the leadership of governor Olusegun Mimiko. All the council’s caretaker Chairmen were able to do was to pay salaries, grade few numbers of roads and embark  on few projects in their domain.

The inability of the state government to conduct the election was sequel to a court injection instituted against the dissolution of the elected Chairmen by governor Olusegun Mimiko barely ten days after he assumed office in 2009 following the sack of the late former governor Olusegun Agagu. Elected council chairmen and counsellors who were elected in December 2007 were unceremoniously kicked out  dragged the governor to court to challenge the illegality of their removal.

Since then  the state government has been using that as an excuse to conduct council elections and has been appointing Caretaker Chairmen whose tenure are either renewed every six months or new sets of caretakers are appointed to run the affairs of the third tier of government. While this lasted, the opposition party – All Progressive Congress, APC, has at the slightest opportunity accused the state governor of surreptitiously encouraging the court action to linger for selfish reasons.

South West Voice gathered that the “marriage” between the Labour Party and the Peoples Democratic Party  two years ago made the two warring parties to resolve their differences, hence, the hurdle to conduct the elections removed.

Governor Mimiko while presenting last year’s budget hinted at the possibility of conducting the council polls. Infact he said the state government was saving funds which he estimated will gulp N500m towards the election. The opposition party responded by saying the governor was playing politics and was not ready for the election because his popularity has nosedived and would not want to be beaten black and blue in an election.

Issuance of notice

However, the main opposition party which has been castigating government for shying away from conducting the election somersaulted last week after the timetable and the guidelines for the elections were rolled out by the State Independent Electoral Commission ( ODIEC). The Chairman of the state electoral Commission, Prof. Olugbenga Ige while meeting with leaders of the political parties said Section 30 (1) of the Electoral Act of 2010 stipulates that there must be issuance of notice of election by the commission not later than 90 days before the conduct of the election, hence the need to intimate all stakeholders over the development.

Prof Ige explained that the legal tussle had been responsible for the decision of the commission to put the election on hold. “We were advised to wait for the final determination of the case and after the decision of the High court, the chairmen went to the Court of Appeal where the court rules that the state government was in order to have dissolved the chairmen.  As I speak to you, the case is still before the Supreme Court but their prayers have changed.

They no longer ask the Court to reinstate them but that they should be compensated. “As far as we are concerned at ODSIEC, the coast is clear for us to conduct local government election” Twenty seven political parties attended the stakeholders meeting where the timetable and guidelines for the election were made public. Only the main opposition party APC boycotted the stakeholders meeting called by the state electoral umpire. However, the APC leaders have cried foul and pointedly said the election was a bobby trap and a distraction by the state government.

However, many of the party leaders are not on the same page with the decision of the party’s Central Working Committee , the State Executive Committee and the expanded executives   on the boycott of the election fixed for April 23 this year. A sharp disagreement ensued between the party state executive members and the over 15 governorship aspirants of the party over the boycott or participation of the party in the elections. A leaders consultative meeting held in Akure, the state capital by the APC ended without the party  agreeing whether to boycott or participate in the election as many reasons for and against were adduced by stakeholders in the party.

Addressing party faithful at the  meeting, the State Party Chairman Hon Isaac. Kekemeke made frantic efforts to convince the party members but many were not on the same page with him and his executives members on why the party should now back out after vilifying the state government for not conducting the poll in the last seven years. Kekemeke in an interview with South West Voice threw a poser to the governor asking him why his Labour Party boycotted the 2007 local government election conducted by the then PDP government led by the late governor Olusegun Agagu

He said that the party will not participate in the proposed local government election just as he expressed fear in the leadership of the state electoral body. According to him “ODSIEC cannot conduct a credible election as he who pays the piper dictates the tune. “The conclusion reached was that the election is a sham meant to trap our party. It is an illegal election about to be conducted when there is a subsisting case on the matter at the Supreme Court.

“Besides, Mimiko’s ODIEC is composed of Labour Party/PDP membership card carrying members. Worse still, this LP/PDP government is highly deficient in character, integrity and fairness that it cannot be trusted to midwife any free and fair process. “To participate is to help massage Mimiko’s ego, support illegality and to allow ourselves to be distracted from our singular mission of wrestling power in a few months time.”

Wrestling power

“The suit is coming up sometimes in April, what the hurry then? Why the sudden u-turn to conduct this election when the case is pending at the Supreme court. We believe that it is not proper, it is not respectful of the judiciary and we do not want to be part of this contempt and disrespect for the judiciary,Why can’t the state government wait till April to know the exact status . If it cannot be late for seven years it can never be late now.

“In 2007, they said they were popular and had all the people but why do they not participate in that election? So we can’t be trapped by this election. Did Wike participate in the election organised by Amaechi at the twilight light of his administration?

Kwakwanso also cleared all the chairmanship and councilperson in Kano, so that has been the trend, the problem is that the state independent electoral commission are yet to mature and they are still like agents of the state government. They are funded by the state government, take instructions from the governors and he who pays the piper dictates the tune.”

It would take time for them to mature and be independent of the state government. This is not an election between parties but an election going to be conducted by one of the parties. Speaking on the boycott, the governorship candidate of the defunct Acton Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the 2012 governorship election in the state, Rotimi Akeredolu SAN disagreed with his party leaders insisting that the party should participate and not chicken out now that the popularity of the incumbent governor has declined.

Akeredolu who said though the election might be rigged by the PDP said participation in the election will give the party the locus Standi to challenge the outcome of the election at the law court. However, the governorship candidate of PDP in the last gubernatorial election, Olusola Oke who recently defected to APC to realise his governorship ambition disagreed with Akeredolu postulations and supported non participation in the election he described as  “Orchestrated distraction”

Oke who called for total boycott of the election argued that it was designed to cause distraction for the party towards the October governorship election. However, the National Vice Chairman of the Party in the South West, Chief Pius Akinyelure noticing the sharp disagreement within the leaders on the Council elections said the matter will be tabled before the national leadership of the party to know the right step to take on the matter.

Meanwhile,some members of the sacked council chairmen from PDP have also threatened to stop the local government election if the state government failed to honour the agreement of paying them their entitlements. They said that they agreed to sheath their sword after the governor agreed to their terms of paying them their entitlements. The group under the auspices of 2009 Counselors Forum vowed to frustrate the effort of the state governor towards conducting the election.

The leader of the group, Yinka Akosile told Vanguard that the case is pending in court while the apex court had adjourned the the case till April, 2016. Akosile said “ we wish to tell the entire public that we have not amended our prayers at the court contrary to the speculations of ODIEC as announced in the media at the weekend. We have not and we are not ready to amend our prayers. “ We consider this as misinformation and attempt to preempt the court, this we attributed to unavailability of information and gross disrespect to the rule of law. “

“ We strongly hold opinion that our matter ought to have been addressed for the state government to conduct a credible local government election instead of the deliberate mis-statements of the facts of our prayers before the Supreme Court “ However, the state Commissioner for Information, Mr Kayode Akinmade, while reacting stated that the matter was an intra-party affair which will be settled amicably by the party .

He said, “ it is the PDP that took PDP to court so there is no problem about that we shall settle it amicably within the party “ Similarly,there is confusion in the camps of some of the other opposition parties in the state over the local government election. The leadership of SDP in the state has not taken a concrete decision to participate or not to. It’s state Chairman Chief Korede Duyile said the notice given was too short and the party leadership needed to meet and decide on what to do on the issue.

Also, a governorship aspirant of the party, Dr Olu Agunloye also expressed the same fear saying, “ the decision of governor to conduct local government election less than six months to the next governorship election in the state was aimed to destabilize and cripple the opposition parties ahead of the election.

But the PDP state Chairman Clement Faboyede said there is no going back on the election and challenged any of the opposition parties to test their popularity with the council election. Faboyede wondered why the APC which had been castigating government over the non-conduct of the poll is now singing a new song describing the party as a party of deceit. The Chairman pointed out that the APC knew it could not fly in the coming council poll and the governorship election  hence it’s decision to back out.

Faboyede said the fact that many of the leaders of  the opposition party disagreed with the state executive on the boycott showed that the party is in disarray and not on ground in the state. The   state Independent Electoral Commission ODEIC has equally insisted that the election will hold as scheduled. Prof Olugbenga Ige told Vanguard that “there would be no postponement or change of date of the forthcoming local government election According to the chairman, the commission was committed to conduct a free, fair and credible election Prof Ige urged all stakeholders to cooperate with the commission to make the exercise a success.