No Governor is small. You can’t be taking orders from a former governor when you have a serving governor.
Edo Local Councils
My question is if Obaseki was still the governor and he requested the 18 council chairmen to submit their statement of accounts to him, will they obey or disregard the order of Obaseki?
The refusal of the chairmen to obey the order of the governor Okpebholo was not only a total disregard but also an insult to the office and person of the governor.
If obaseki was there, none of the council chairmen, not even one, has the balls to disregard him but they feel Gov Monday cannot do anything and so he can be disrespected. Them forget say no small governor.
The governor gave a strong reason for making the request for them to submit their statement of accounts. He said 800million was deducted from the council allocations every month as ‘environmental security fund’. The Etsako west council chairman, on Arisetv, few days ago, confirmed that such deductions were actually made on monthly basis and he doesn’t know full details of what the money was used for. That alone indicts the government of Obaseki that was making these deductions from council allocations every month. Yet some of you still say the governor cannot request for statement of account from them.
Just few days ago, the governor said N8bn was given to the councils as against the N6bn for previous months. Does these councils looks like they received such huge amounts as allocations? The answer is NO. Yet some of you say the governor shouldn’t have requested to see their books. Despite the huge allocations, none of these chairmen is doing any major projects. Is local government autonomy met to waste money? Abi how una Dey reason this autonomy thing sef?
Not until Gov Okpebholo came on board, we didn’t know that obaseki was still running a joint account with the local councils thereby making it possible for him to make these humongous deductions. Despite running a joint account and making deductions, none of these council chairmen could cough about it. Edo people thought they were receiving allocations directly to their council accounts. But within the first month of Gov Okpebholo, they went on to say Edo State government under Gov Okpebholo was running a joint account with the 18 councils. These are same people who couldn’t say anything when obaseki was running a joint account with them but suddenly found their voice because it’s Gov Okpebholo. I wonder what we should call such characters who call themselves council chairmen.
The current ordeal of the council chairmen is exactly what you get when you disobey a governor. No Governor is small. You can’t be taking orders from a former governor when you have a serving governor.
Now that the former governor who deducted and played with their monies, told them not to take orders from the current governor has put them in trouble, where is he now to rescue them?
Knowledge they say is profitable to direct.
God bless Edo State
~Comr Livinus Bogante
