By Simon Ebegbulem, Benin City
The Edo State government reacted angrily, yesterday, to the House of Representatives motion asking the Federal authorities to withhold forthwith the monthly Federal allocations to local governments in Edo and Ekiti states saying the reps, by the action had shown that they are “jobless.”

The Reps’ action followed the recent dissolution of the councils in both states by the state governments.
The executive arms of the two states are controlled by the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and the dissolved councils mainly by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

But addressing newsmen in Benin yesterday, the Special Adviser on Publicity Matters to the Edo State Governor, Mr. Charles Idahosa said the action of the Reps showed that “they have nothing doing.”

“These people are just there “jobless. They have nothing doing,”Mr. Idahosa said.

In fact, I am one of those that have been saying that the National Assembly should be a part time thing. There are pressing issues in Nigeria that they are supposed to talk about; they are talking about local government that is purely an affair of the state.

“The local government can only function with laws made by the state House of Assembly, how the House of Representatives is concerned, nobody knows.

“Nigerians are languishing in prisons all over the world, Nigerians are being treated as terrorists; the National Assembly has not been able to focus its attention on these areas. There is no electricity in this country, we have bad roads, there is kidnapping, there is insecurity, mass killings here and there, children being kidnapped.

Instead of facing what we voted them for they are busy playing politics because they are in government at the national level.

“We all know that the 10 years have been wasted at the national level because the PDP has not done anything. Few days ago I was reading in the papers the kind of emoluments they approved for themselves and we are very aware that for the first time in this state we have seen governance touching the lives of the people in every nook and cranny of the state.”

“Governor Oshiomhole, Mr. Idahosa claimed, has operated under the ambit of the law, he has not done anything illegal and the threat by the National Assembly that funds to these councils should be seized shows that the PDP members in the National Assembly don’t even have an idea of what is happening in this country.

There was a Supreme Court judgment in favour of Lagos state government during the Obasanjo government that nobody has any right to stop any allocation to any tier of government, even the President cannot do that.

“I am not surprised by the attitude of the PDP that has been crying because the Comrade Governor in his magnanimity left them there for too long. We are all aware that there was no local government election in this state in 2007 that brought them to power.

In-fact I am aware that some of the council chairmen were already packing their things out of office immediately Comrade Adams Oshiomhole was announced winner of the election by the Appeal Court but to the surprise of everybody, he left them so long, instead of showing appreciation, they have gone to start shouting illegality” he stated.