PDP To Aregbesola: Stop Creation Of 39 New Councils

Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Governor, State of Osun

The Peoples Democratic Party has advised Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, to suspend his plans to create additional 39 local council development areas.

The Director of Media and Strategy of the PDP in Osun State, Mr. Diran Odeyemi, gave this advice in a statement in Osogbo on Sunday.

According to the opposition party, the situation on the ground now does not call for creation of new councils when the existing ones are suffering from underfunding and could not make positive impact on the lives of the people at the grassroots.

The statement partly read, “The reality in Osun calls for serious planning because the economy of the

state now or even in near future cannot cope with 69 local government councils when the state could not generate fund to develop the existing 30 councils.

“This is a poorly conceived idea lacking the understanding and needs of the people of Osun State while its proposed execution at this time shows that Governor Aregbesola has lost ideas of what is next in the state.

“The rest of the country must be astonished about a governor that has not been able to fulfill its financial obligations to the workforce and plunge the state economy into a crisis, but interestingly planning to create new councils to make Osun as the only state in Nigeria to have 69 councils.”

The last House of Assembly which had all its members from the ruling party had some days before the expiration of its tenure passed a bill establishing 39 additional local development areas . This followed the outcome of a referendum conducted by the Osun State Independent Electoral Commission.

This was preceded by the bill sent to the House by the governor to seek the lawmakers’ approval for the creation of the new council areas.

The PDP stated that rather than taking into consideration the peculiar needs of Osun State and its financial capacity, the governor was busy copying Lagos State’s programmes even when they were not needed in the state.

“Copying Lagos notes is affecting Osun negatively. Buying helicopter, creating LCDAs, planting flowers are all Lagos ideas. Aregbesola is running Osun as a sole administrator. In his first term, it took him almost one year before he could constitute his cabinet.

“Again 10 months into his second term, the cabinet has not been formed and may not be formed at all for obvious reasons. Even, when his commissioners were in office, the whole state knows he does not listen to their suggestions. He governs the state as a sole administrator,” the opposition party added.

Effort to get the reaction of the governor to the PDP’s advice was unsuccessful as inquiry sent to his media aide, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, was still being expected as of the time of filing this report.

But the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mr. Najeem Salaam, had while passing the bill said that the new councils were created for administrative conveniences.

The speaker, who urged the governor to prioritise giving his assent to the bill for the creation of the councils, said their creation “became imperative in order to bring government closer to the grassroots.

“The primary purpose of the creation of the councils and administrative units was for the administrative conveniences, not to hyper-bloat the already existing over-bloated civil and political regimes which have become an albatross to the limited resources of the state.