Ondo PDP cautions Akeredolu on creation of LCDAs

Following the dissolution of local councils in Ondo State, the state Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has cautioned Governor Rotimi Akeredolu against creating new Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs), saying it will cause unnecessary distractions and confusion.

The party claimed there were alleged plans by the Akeredolu administration to create LCDAs and appoint members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as council chairmen.

PDP’s Director of Publicity, Mr. Ayo Fadaka, who had earlier raised an alarm on alleged plots to attack the PDP council executives by APC members, said in Akure yesterday that the creation of LCDAs would only cause unnecessary tension in the state.

He also alleged that the APC-led state government plans to starve the PDP controlled 18 local councils of funds and the necessary support for smooth administration.

But the Vice Chairman of the APC in the state, Mr. Ade Adetimehin, assured that the government had no plans to create new LCDAs at the moment and dismissed PDP allegations as wrong and misleading.

“I don’t know where the PDP got their information from. Creation of LCDAs takes a long process and it is not in our plans for now. We just took over the government. What we are doing now is how to move the state forward. The PDP is just raising unnecessary alarm,” he said.

But Fadaka said: “If they think they want to create LCDAs because those that currently control the local government in the state are members of the PDP, we must tell them that they are really preparing for a serious discord in our state.”

Meanwhile, Akeredolu had assured that he has no plans to dissolve the existing local government councils as it had been widely speculated before and after his swearing-in ceremony.

The governor’s lawyer, Mr. Charles Titiloye, disclosed at the Court of Appeal that the governor was unaware of any suit on dissolution of the 18 local government councils in the state.

Whereas Akeredolu had purportedly appealed a judgment delivered by Justice Olasehinde Kumuyi of the state High Court in January 2017, restraining him from removing the council bosses from office.

But Titiloye affirmed that the governor was neither aware of the High Court order restraining him from dissolving the councils nor the appeal supposedly filed by him.