The Benue State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) slammed Governor Hyacinth Alia yesterday for suspending 23 local government chairmen in the state.
The newly inaugurated state house of assembly had suspended the 23 LG chairmen to allow for an investigation into allegations of misappropriation of funds.
In a statement yesterday, the state Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Bemgba Iortyom, said the governor and the state assembly led by the All Progressives Congress (APC) were perplexed by the development.
The statement reads in part;
In a series of steps which may only be likened to the macabre dance of those drunken with power, the governor had on 14th June, 2023, through his Chief of Staff, Paul Biam, originated a correspondence to the state assembly purporting same to be a report of an investigation into the income and expenditures of the local government councils in the state from February to April 2023, requesting the assembly to investigate and make necessary recommendations on the report.
The legislative house executing its own steps in this choreography of the absurd had brought the correspondence from the governor to the floor of the house on 20th June, 2023 and mandated a 3-man committee to investigate it and report back to the house within two weeks.
The PDP regretted that the legislative house also sought to impose its coup d’état at the third tier of government by enlisting the services of the Nigerian Police Force, which they asked to take over the secretariats of the various councils and urged the governor to appoint caretaker committees to run the councils’ affairs.
Iorytom also stated that the government’s action is in violation of an existing order of a court of competent jurisdiction through a perpetual injunction, which effectively prohibits the Benue State government from taking any action, punitive or otherwise, that seeks to interfere with the tenure of those duly elected councils at the state’s local government tier of administration.
He claimed that the government had not even filed an appeal against the ruling.