By Halimah Olamide
The governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party in Ogun State Asiwaju Tony Ojeshina has berated the Governor of the state Dapo Abiodun over police invasion of the headquarters of the Ijebu East Local Government Area of the state.
He said the Governor is fast turning the state into a Gestapo state.
While condemning the invasion of the council, whose chairman, Hon. Wale Adedayo, had accused the Governor of diversion of revenues meant for the local governments, he said such leadership style is shameful.
He said “people of Ogun State are in a state of shock as a new phenomenon in Local Government administration unfolds with the maximum ruler Dapo Abiodun, causing security agents to invade the secretariat of Ijebu East LG, in a bid to unseat the Chairman Wale Adedayo, in a gestapo style.”
He appealed to all stakeholders to rise up to stem what he called “this sad optics unraveling before the good people of Ogun state.”
The present crisis was triggered when Adedayo wrote a highly emotive and scathing appeal to the ex-Governor of the State and foremost APC leader Aremo Olusegun Osoba.
In the letter, the Ijebu East Chairman detailed how the State Government has appropriated billons of naira monthly allocations due to Local Administrations in the state.
He painted a sad picture of how the third tier of governance has been totally paralyzed as a result of the alleged greed of the governor of the state.
Adedayo also petitioned the EFCC to probe alleged mismanagement of Local Government allocations to the state, despite the policy of the APC controlled Federal Government, on enhanced fiscal autonomy of Local Governments in the country.
On Wednesday, some other local government chairmen in the state visited the Governor to prostrate pleading for forgiveness for their ‘misguided’ colleague. Ojeshina said, “Shamefully, the state government leaked the pictures and videos of the prostrating chairmen to the press.
While people were expecting good counsel and crisis management to prevail, security agents stormed the headquarters of Ijebu East local government in a bid to arrest the erring chairman. Also in a despicable style of politicking the councilors in the local government, mysteriously raised financial allegations against the chairman, suspended him and apparently kickstarting a process of imminent impeachment.”
Ojeshina commended Adedayo for getting more deviant in the face of intimidations.