Leaders of organised civil society groups, labour unions and youth activists have announced plans to storm Osun State in response to what they describe as the illegal occupation of local government councils and the severe hardship imposed on residents through the diversion and withholding of council funds.
The Movement for Credible Elections (MCE) condemned the complicity of the Federal Government and the Police authorities in allowing Osun local government councils to be occupied by impostors, despite clear and subsisting rulings of courts of competent jurisdiction.
“The actions are aimed at frustrating and coercing the Osun State Government, which was duly elected on a political platform different from that of the party controlling the Federal Government,” the MCE said in a statement signed by Comrade James Ezema, Media Coordinator of MCE.
The Movement questioned the authority under which APC chairmen and councillors are currently running Osun local governments, noting that they have openly admitted that their so-called tenure has expired and that they have approached the court for tenure elongation, a case that is yet to be heard.
“So under what authority are they holding on to the local governments and administering local government funds, if by state law it is only career civil servants that can be signatories to local government accounts?” the Movement queried.
The MCE also raised concerns over the role of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) in the crisis, questioning why the bank is allegedly taking subversive directives from Abuja and leaders of the Osun APC to pay out council funds to politicians without lawful mandates.
The Movement described the occupation of council secretariats by APC chairmen and councillors as a brazen subversion of the rule of law and Nigeria’s democratic order, and condemned the Federal Government and the Police for emboldening the illegal occupants.
“The most affected are retirees, healthcare workers and the general masses. The Federal Government and its agents in Abuja are taking joy in the suffering and hardship of the Osun people,” the MCE said.
The Movement warned that continuing along this path poses grave dangers to Nigeria’s democracy, the rule of law and national cohesion, and called on civil society organisations, labour unions, youths, professional bodies and all lovers of democracy to remain on alert and prepare to storm Osun State in February to intervene in what it described as grave injustice against the suffering masses of the state.
