Indications have emerged that the governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party may have resolved to throw their weight behind the local government chairmen recently sacked from office in Ondo State by Governor Rotimi Akeredolu.
The 18 council chairmen, who were elected on the platform of the PDP under the administration of former Governor Olusegun Mimiko, have been engaged in a legal tussle with Akeredolu for removing them from office before the end of their tenure.
The Ondo governor terminated the tenure of the elected LG bosses and replaced them with caretaker committees.
Our correspondent gathered that in their efforts to secure justice for the sacked elected council chairmen, the 12-man strong PDP Governors’ Forum, led by the Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, recently decided to support the embattled LG bosses in their ongoing legal war against the Akeredolu administration in Ondo State.
Party sources told our correspondent that the PDP governors were determined to ensure a reversal of the sacking of the Ondo council chairmen by Akeredolu and had begun to strategise to achieve this objective.
“Our governors feel that they should not just leave the Ondo council chairmen to their fate. They believe they need an equally strong force in getting justice and recovering their mandates,” a PDP source said.
Corroborating the party sources, a PDP chieftain from Ondo, Opeyemi Rasak, said that Governor Akeredolu should expect a battle over his sack of the LG council chairmen.
“Akeredolu just showed us what he is made of and our party is ready to slug it out with him. You can’t just come to the office and sack the people you met there.
These local government chairmen have been in office before you came and you just came and sacked them. Where is that done? Are they not elected legally?” he said.
Also, an aide to Mr. Eyitayo Jegede, PDP governorship candidate in the recently conducted election in the state, speaking under condition of anonymity, said, “PDP, having been unfairly treated by the ruling party in the state, will seek every possible means to ensure justice for the sacked local government chairmen.
The local government chairmen were legally elected and for this, it is wrong for Akeredolu to have acted in such a manner.”
Ondo State PDP Director of Publicity, Ayo Fadaka, also said that the party in the state had begun making concerted efforts to ensure the LG chairmen were reinstated.
“We have decided to appeal the case; we are in the Appeal Court already and we hope that errors and the justice that were perpetrated will be reversed,” he said.
On the said support by the PDP Governors’ Forum for the LG chairmen, Fadaka said, “We are in the same party, and I want to assure you that as far as the party is concerned, we have made concerted efforts about how to reverse that injustice. That the PDP governors are working with us? I am not in a position to confirm that, but I can tell you that we will attract support from our party at the national level and from everyone that remembers us, to ensure justice.”
Efforts to reach the chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum, Fayose, was not successful and phone calls made to his media aide, Lere Olayinka, were not answered.
