Fashola Dissolves Council Excos

LAGOS—As the three-year statutory tenure of all council chairmen and councilors expired yesterday, Tuesday, October 28, 2014, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State has directed the bosses in the 20 Local Government Areas, LGAs, and 37 Local Council Development Areas, LCDAs, to handover administration to managers in their respective council.It will be recalled that the out-going council bosses were sworn into office in October 2011 after emerging winners in the council polls across the state in which then Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, now All Progressives Congress, APC, won across board defeating contenders of other political parties.The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Aderemi Ibirogba, who announced the development to council bosses, said that consequently, all affected officials, including Supervisors, Council Secretaries and other political appointees are legally required to vacate their offices by close of business by yesterday.

According to Ibirogba “Chairmen are hereby directed to co-ordinate the exercise and hand over to the council managers in their respective Local Governments who will take charge of the administration until further notice.”

“It is expected that newly elected officials will resume office after the next local government elections to be scheduled and conducted by the State Independent Electoral Commission, LASIEC, upon completion of the continuous voter registration, ward re-delineation and polling booth re-distribution exercise embarked upon by the Independent National Electoral Commission.”

It will be recalled that against speculations of plan by government to replace the council bosses with caretaker committee, some human rights activists had described the move as undemocratic and unconstitutional.

Speculation was rife that the state government might appoint Executive Secretaries to manage the councils, pending fresh local government elections in 2015.
Apart from members of the opposition parties, some APC members also kicked against the planned decision to set up caretaker committees but supported appointment of sole administrators to hold forth before elections.

LASIEC had said recently, that it would defer council election until after the 2015 general elections due to logistics reasons.
The state government conducted elections into the 20 Local Government Areas and 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) across the 377 wards in the five divisions of Ikeja, Badagry, Ikorodu, Lagos Island, and Epe on October 22, 2011.

Winners of the election were sworn in by Governor Fashola on October 29, 2011.

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