Oyo LG election: PDP won’t have field day – APC
Yinka ADETUNJI
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo state has declared boisterously it would participate in the 2024 local government election.
insightonline.com reported that the Oyo State Independent Electoral Commission (OYSIEC) announced the time table for the council election slated for April next year with political parties expected to begin electioneering activities including party primaries to produce their respective chairmanship and councilorship candidates.
But while the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has got busy appointing candidates for chairmanship and councilorship positions other political parties have had no movement giving impression they would not take part.
Nonetheless a stakeholders meeting of the APC convened Saturday at the state party’s office in Ibadan indicated its erstwhile lethargic disposition it had jettisoned as majority members expressed strong willingness to battle PDP for the seats.
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The state publicity secretary of APC, Olawale Sadare, confirming the development in a telephone interview said members unanimously took the decision to participate in the council poll.
Sadare stressed the decision became imperative so that the opposition party could rescue local governments in the state from the non-functional status it presently is enmeshed.
“The unanimous decision at the stakeholders’ meeting held today at our state secretariat in Oke-Ado, Ibadan, was that we would participate with a view to winning most of the available seats in the local government areas and local council development areas.
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“I can assure you that by the time we are done with our final round of consultations on or before Monday, we would roll out schedule of activities since OYSIEC has written to us about the extension of the deadline for the conduct of primary which is now August 31, 2023.
“We are progressives in politics and we are always ready to play our part as democrats. Don’t forget that the main duty of political parties is to field candidates in major elections.
“We have had to face serious pressure from party faithful who want to contest and serve the masses at the grassroots as council chairmen and councilors.
“We have seen what the present administration has turned the third tier of government into in the last four years and it is now imperative for the APC to rescue the situation.
“Even Governor Makinde said it openly that he was not in support of autonomy for local government and this explains why he does not allow the council administrators to function as expected.” Sadare stated.
Recall APC has had a running battle with the administration of Gov Seyi Makinde over his sack of “elected” chairmen during the tenure of late Governor Abiola Ajimobi which it challenged in court with the court ruling in its favour.
All local governments in the state are currently headed by chairmen and councilors “elected” on the platform of PDP as it was during the previous APC administration of late Ajimobi when APC took control of all councils and LCDAs.
“It is an anomaly that has destroyed the third tier of government in the state,” a public commentator Rasheed Adekunle noted during a chat on the matter with insightonline.com.
“Such bastardization should not be allowed to continue, how can one party claim to have won all councilorship and chairmanship seats across the state?
“That only produces heads of local governments who serve not the wishes of the people they purportedly are leading but those of the governor. It is the reason councils cannot construct ordinary culverts again. Things must return to normalcy.”
