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From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
Former Local Government Chairmen and Councillors in Oyo State have accused the state governor, Seyi Makinde and the House of Assembly of witch hunting them on the issue of their outstanding salaries and allowances amounting to N3,374,889,425.60.
The Supreme Court had, in a judgement on May 7, 2021 ordered the Oyo State Government to pay the 796 ex-council chiefs, who the apex court found to have been unlawfully sacked on May 29, 2019 by Makinde, their salaries and allowances for the three years they ought to have served.
By its own computation, the Oyo State Government agreed to pay N4,874,889,425.60 out of which it paid N1.5b, leaving a balance of N3,374,889,425.60 which outstanding judgment debt the Court of Appeal affirmed during a recent hearing on an appeal filed by Makinde, seeking instalment payment of the debt, which request the ex-council chiefs have faulted.
The ex-council chiefs, in a statement released on Friday, noted that a recent resolution by the Oyo State House of Assembly, linking some of them with alleged act of fraud, was part of a plot to get back at them, with the intention of compelling them to abandon the outstanding judgment debt.
They added that since March this year when the got an order to garnish the bank accounts of the state government, in an effort to retrieve the outstanding judgment debt, the government and the House of Assembly saw them as a threat and has devised means to witch hunt them into submission, part of which is the phantom fraud claims.
In the statement signed by three of the affected ex-council chiefs – Ayodeji Abass Aleshinloye, Bashorun Bosun Ajuwon and Oluyinka Jesutoye – they stated that none of them was ever invited by the House of Assembly in respect
of any investigation, “be it by the 9th or 10th Assembly.”
Part of the statement reads: “Our attention has been drawn to a purported Resolution of the Oyo State House
of Assembly, wherein some of our members were purportedly indicted of fraud.
“Our initial reaction was to ignore this ‘awada kerikeri (drama) from a House of
Assembly which does not know the fundamental rules of its own existence.
“However, for the benefit of the great citizens of Oyo State, we hereby state our
side of the story.
“In March 2023, we caused our lawyer to garnishee the account of the state government to the tune of N3,374,889,425.60 being
the outstanding indebtedness of the state government to us, as voluntarily
and solely calculated by them without any input from us.
‘The apex court (Supreme Court) gave its judgment on 7th May, 2021 and gave the said state government three months to comply with its judgment, but the state government unilaterally varied the order of the apex court to six months.
