BY ABIODUN NEJO
Ekiti State Government has debunked reports that the state government has dissolved all local government councils in the state, based on recent court ruling.
Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Yinka Oyebode, said: “The misleading report is a mere fabrication and the general public is hereby urged to disregard it in its entirety as it does not represent the true position of things regarding local government councils in Ekiti State.
Oyebode said in a statement on Saturday that “Government considers it necessary to state emphatically that it has not taken any such action.
“Members of the public would be duly communicated through appropriate channels on government’s decisions on the local government councils as well as other state matters”.
An Ekiti State High Court sitting in Ado Ekiti on Friday struck out a suit filed by the 16 local government chairmen seeking an order to restrain Governor Kayode Fayemi from removing them from office.
The council chairmen, under the aegis of the state chapter of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria
(ALGON), who are members of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), had filed the suit to stop the governor, who is of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Justice Abiodun Adesodun struck out the suit following a notice of discontinuance filed by the applicants’ counsel, Mr. Ezekiel Agunbiade.
Counsel to the defendants had filed a preliminary objection to challenge the jurisdiction of the court to hear the suit on grounds that the action of the plaintiffs was speculative, pre-emptive, vexatious and
unmeritorious.
The preliminary objection was also anchored on the fact that no cause of action had arisen on the fate of the council chairmen at the time the case was filed.
The defendants in the suit are Dr. Kayode Fayemi (1st), Governor of Ekiti State (2nd), Attorney General, (3rd), Speaker (4th) and House of
Assembly (4th).
The striking out of the suit now leaves the future of the local government chairmen hanging in the balance.
