Since May 2019, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State has urged residents to demand accountability for the council funds.
The party’s publicity secretary, Olawale Sadare, in a statement in Ibadan on Thursday, lamented the preponderance of pressure being mounted on its elected officials, federal appointees and privileged members by the masses as a result of the seeming gagging of the 33 local government councils by Governor Seyi Makinde’s administration.
According to the party, there are indications that the joint account arrangement between the state government and the 33 LGAs has hindered the adequate performance of the third tier of government.
As a result, it added that the council officials lacked the power to manage funds allocated to them from the federation accounts every month.
APC faulted the leadership of the state’s House of Assembly for its inability to compel Governor Makinde to make funds available to its members to empower their constituents, as was the practice before 2019 and in most states across the country.
“We have observed the current situation across the state, and we have realised the pressure being mounted on all the elected officials, particularly the serving members of the National Assembly. Our federal lawmakers are feeling the heat as state residents demand more democratic dividends, especially at the grassroots level.
“Ideally, the third tier of government should be the closest to the people, but the handlers of the existing 33 local government councils are not visible or accessible, mainly because Gov.
“Makinde has been in total control of the funds that should have been used to care for citizens at the grassroots level. In the last 68 months, no single local government in the state has been able to deliver essential services to the residents.
“And to make matters worse, most people do not care to distinguish among the three tiers of government as they keep blaming the government at the centre, whereas the governor deprives them by deliberately rendering the councils ineffective.
“This scenario explains why residents approach Senators and members of the House of Representatives to provide electricity transformers, street lights and boreholes.
“They also ask them to fix deplorable community roads, build health care facilities, police posts, culverts among other things even as they (constituents) feign ignorance of the primary responsibility of the lawmakers in Abuja.’’
