By Shina Abubakar, Osogbo
Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke and the All Progressives Congress APC in the State have traded words over Local Government administration in the State.
The APC, in a statement issued by its Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi, accused the Governor of misinforming the public about the stay of council elected officials. The Governor’s Spokesperson, Olawale Rasheed, insisted that the APC officials staying at the council secretariats are illegal.
Olabisi said, “The governor’s broadcast was a ploy to use falsehoods to confuse and ultimately misinform the members of the public, as it is far from the truth that the reinstated APC chairmen and councillors have been illegally occupying the local government council secretariats for about one year.
“One would have expected Governor Adeleke to have been bold enough to have owned up in his broadcast that he used executive power to sack the legally elected APC chairmen and councillors immediately he assumed power, without allowing them to enjoy the constitutional full cycle of the courts to seek justice in their ordeal then.
“It was also expected that the governor would have been honest enough to tell the world that it was the Court of Appeal judgement of the 10th of February, 2025, which reinstated the APC local government council chairmen and the councillors in its landmark judgment and that there is no information anywhere signifying the appeal of the judgement which made the legal pronouncement binding to date.
“Part of the brazen lies told by Governor Adeleke that the reinstated APC council chairmen and councillors are suing for the elongation of their tenure does not hold water, as the matter before the Federal High Court in Osogbo is the determination of the three-year tenure by the APC council executives.
“One would have expected a state executive that would be honest enough to have disclosed in his broadcast that apart from the determination of the tenure, the reinstated APC council chairmen and councillors are also asking for the legality of the conduct of another election into the councils during the subsistency of the tenure of the reinstated APC chairmen and councillors”.
However, Adeleke, in his response, insisted that the council officials’ tenure was extended illegally, saying their tenure of office lapsed in October 2025.
“Local government autonomy is not equal to unjustifiable seizure of local governments’ funds which are meant to pay local health workers, local teachers and local pensioners. I have been paying these local workers because local autonomy does not mean imposing avoidable hardship on the people.
“If truly we are in a democracy, unelected people cannot lay claim to local governments and even tamper with public funds. In a truly practical democracy, you cannot extend your tenure by a single day without being arrested and jailed.
“In a democracy, the police authority will not give cover to unelected people and people with expired self-awarded tenure to occupy the councils. The mere fact that these APC officials admitted that their tenure had lapsed and that they had headed to court for elongation is enough for the police to withdraw cover and allow validly elected local government chairmen to assume office.
“If you admitted that your tenure has lapsed, what are you still doing at the local councils? If you had gone to court to seek tenure elongation, why must you still occupy the councils when the case has not even been heard?
“The fact that you file a case does not mean you have your tenure elongated. And your tenure cannot even be elongated because the constitution did not allow it. Osun APC are engaging in a severe, criminal breach of the law and the constitution”, he added.
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