Lagos State House of Assembly on Tuesday suspended three local government council chairmen over alleged disregard for the rules governing their activities.
The affected chairmen are: Ogidan Olaitan of Lekki Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Suleiman Jelili of Alimosho Local Government and Tajudeen Ajide of Surulere Local Government.
The House announced their suspension through a voice vote during the plenary shortly after Bisi Yusuff (Alimosho 1) raised a complaint against one of the suspended chairmen.
The House said it could no longer continue to watch the council chairmen flouting the state’s local government guidelines governing their activities.
Yusuff, chairman of the House Committee on Commerce and Industry, told the House how Olaitan had been allegedly unruly and had disregard for the assembly members.
He complained that Olaitan accused the lawmakers of carrying out an oversight function on a memorandum of understanding in relation to an issue that arose from a resettlement programme in Lekki.
The lawmaker further said the council chairman had total disregard for those in his domain whom he was elected to govern. Commenting, Mr Fatai Mojeed (Ibeju-Lekki 1), accused Jelili and Ajide of questioning the House for investigating the councils based on the petitions raised by their counsellors.
Mojeed then urged his colleagues to suspend the chairmen pending the outcome of the investigations on the allegations made against them to serve as deterrent to others.
The Speaker of the House, Mudashiru Obasa, while speaking on the issue, noted that the House had received petitions from many councillors in the state against some serving chairmen.
Obasa said the House could not continue to watch while council chairmen flout the laws that they were supposed to uphold. “Total disregard for local government guidelines is something that should not be tolerated. We cannot continue like this. We can’t be breeding monsters in our local government councils.”
He added that it would not be ideal to gloss over the issues as it would be creating a precedence of disobedience to the law by council chairmen especially at a time the state was planning elections into the councils.
According to him, we have received too many petitions from their councillors against many chairmen, this is the time to take action. The speaker directed the Clerk of the House, Mr. Olalekan Onafeko, to write Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and other stakeholders on the decision of the House.
