•Questions Gov AbdulRazaq on N42bn LG fund
Coalition of Civil Society on Autonomy of Local Goverment in Nigeria has asked Kwara Gov AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to constitute the State Electoral Commission to conduct election into local councils in the state.
The Convenner of Coalition, Mallam Musa Aliu, at a press briefing on Thursday said it was an “aberration” if local government election is not conducted by November.
He said, “Where the government refuses to reinstate the members of the illegally dissolved members of KWASIEC or constitutes a new one and inaugurate them on or before the 15th day of November, 2020, this illegality will be challenged in court immediately, It is also clear from the provisions of the law that any person who is a registered member of a political party cannot be member(s) orChairman of the Commission, that the Governor of Kwara State having operated without democratically elected Councils for more than sixteen months, should set in motion immediately the machinery for the conduct of the Local Council election forthwith.
“It will be patently illegal for any Governor and specifically in this case, the Governor of Kwara State to either constitute a Care-taker committee or Transition committee or even run the council by Civil Servants under the headship of the Director, Personnel and Management (DPM) as presently being done in Kwara State.
Speaking on the LG allocation, Musa stated, “It should be noted that at the dawn of the administration of Governor Abdulrahman AbdulRazaq, the elected council he met was dissolved. Since then, he has been running the affairs of the sixteen Local Government Areas using the Civil Servants at the Local Government level. From the month of May 2019 to the month of September 2020 the total sum of N41,251,620,745.68 had accrued to the sixteen Local Government Councils of Kwara State.
“The government of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq must account for the sum of Forty One Billion, Two Hundred and Fifty One Million, Six Hundred and Twenty Thousand, Seven Hundred and Forty-Five Naira and sixty eight Kobo (N41,251,620,745.68) representing the allocations of the sixteen Local Government councils of Kwara State for past sixteen months (May, 2019-August, 2020).
“Where this is not done, individuals and group like our own, will be justified to go to appropriate court to compel the Governor to account for the money of the sixteen Local Government Councils of the State. That is exactly what we shall do unless the governor discharges the duty of accountability he owes the people immediately.”