Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State

Richard Elesho/ Lokoja

Social crusader and activist, Comrade Austin Okai, has threatened to challenge the decision of the Kogi state government to extend tenure of illegal administrators at the local government levels in a law court.

Okai made this known in a statement on Friday while rejecting the new arrangement, describing it as an action by the state government to further impoverish people of the state.

Comrade Okai further said that the recycling of council officials in the last four years by Governor Yahaya Bello shows lack of capacity and political will to convene modest council administration in line with the constitutional provisions and other relevant laws.

He said Nigeria is a federation that needs nothing less than a widely acceptable conduct of local government elections to throw up leaders at the the third tier of government.

“We are going to court. There must be local government election in Kogi state. We are ready to go to court and challenge Gov. Yahaya Bello’s unpopular decision to subvert local government processes. The constitution broke governance in Nigeria into three units, namely, federal, state, and local government. Democracy must be allowed to thrive in all tiers of government.”

Okai alleged that the unpopular decision of Kogi state government has opened up a conduit pipe to further siphon local council funds through corrupt tendencies of the state officials and local government appointees; a menace that has been prevalent in the last four years.

He further said that the Governor reneged on it’s promise to fight the scourge of corruption.

“Governor Yahaya Bello always think he is smart, he keeps on doing this and go free because he is enjoying Presidency’s romance. You can’t convert local government to a mere security outpost.”

He said Kogi should not operate in isolation from other states, as the NFIU guidelines does not preclude Kogi state from robust and modest council administration .

“This is fraudulent and we must resist it by all legal means. The NFIU said there must be an existing local government structure, so Kogi cannot be an isolation.”