Blame Aiyedatiwa for scrapping of LCDAs, Ajayi
Governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, His Excellency Agboola Ajayi, has said Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa should be blamed for last week’s scrapping of 33 Local Council Development Areas (LCDA) by the court.
Ajayi, who spoke to reporters in Akure, said Governor Aiyedatiwa should have intervened, reconciled, and addressed the injustice the people must have raised as regards the creation of the LCDAs.
According to him, “I still maintain what I said by blaming Governor Aiyedatiwa for the judgement and the aftermath of that creation.
“I’m blaming Aiyedatiwa because before they went to court, they must have written several letters to him. Even when they were in court, what stopped him from calling to settle out of court? There is nothing bad in that, and that is leadership. Do you know how much money has gone into that? The hope of the people has been dashed.
“Government is a serious business. Once you inherit an asset from the government, you must also inherit the liability of whatever it is from that government.
“The blame Aiyedatiwa has as a leader was not setting up alternative dispute resolution on the matter.
“I was a former local government Chairman. I served as a former Supervising Counsellor, chairman of the of the Caretaker Committee, and elected chairman. If you put this together with the local government, my experience there is about eight years.
“I also served as Deputy Governor, where I supervised the local government chairman, so I have more experience than Aiyedatiwa in that regard. Not only that, I appreciate and understand what the local government administration can do for the people in rural areas. So, we must take local government administration very seriously. That is the closest government to the people, and we must nurture it.
“You need to see and feel the news and the zeal that came with that creation at that time. We can’t have a perfect system for everything we are doing. When those LCDAs were created, the late governor was abroad on medical leave.
“Akoko has the right to protest that there was no equitable distribution in the creation of the LCDAs. These are normal, legitimate protests. But it is now the duty of the government to look into their grievances and complaints. We don’t need to throw the baby away with the bath water. That is only the area in which I oppose that it is wrong.”
