Save Enugu Group Rejects Local Government Caretaker Committees

  The Save Enugu Group (SEG) has rejected plans by the Enugu State governor, Ifeanyi Ugwanyi to set up caretaker committees for the seventeen local government areas in the state.

The group said, “the purported approval from the so-called stakeholders amounted to nothing since they are not a constitutionally recognized organ or arm of government.”

They also accused Governor Ugwanyi of covering for his predecessor, Sullivan Chime by not disclosing how much he inherited from the previous administration, noting that the information would have allowed Enugu people to know if the state was genuinely too broke to hold local government elections.

Reacting to the meeting held last Saturday, which was reported to have been attended by People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chieftains in the state, the SEG said chieftains of one political party had “no right to gang up and deny the people of the state the right to governance.”

It said the Enugu state government must immediately set machinery in motion for elections to hold within the shortest possible time.

A statement by the coordinator of Save Enugu Group, Chief Willy Ezugwu on Monday explained that Governor Ugwanyi had ample opportunity to plan for the council elections since coming into office six months ago but deliberately opted to create a scenario where his stooges would be appointed caretaker committee chairmen at the expense of democratic structures.

It described the reasons given by Governor Ugwanyi for not being able to hold local government elections as laughable since he had never been heard to have raised genuine concerns about the condition of Enugu state’s finances.

According to the group, “If genuinely there were no budgetary allocations for the council polls, it should have formed a basis for Governor Ifeanyi Ugwanyi to come clean about the condition of the state’s finances. He should tell us how much he inherited from the previous administration.

“His contemporaries in other states disclosed what they met in the coffers without being coerced to do so. Also, six months is not too short to explain what he has done with the funds he met on ground to the extent that there is no money to conduct elections into the local government councils.

“It is very possible for pre-election activities to kick off and run simultaneously with the ongoing local government staff audit. So that excuse has also failed to fly as it made it obvious that the governor was merely shopping for excuses to explain away his anti-democratic leanings that is preventing the people of the state from getting the closest level of representation provided for by the constitution.

“We by this statement urge all those who took part in the infamous gathering to immediately distance themselves from the anti-people decisions reached at the so called meeting especially now that Nigerians and Enugu people in particularly have now realized how easy it is to punish errant politicians at the polls.

“The people of the state must question why chieftains of only one political party were labeled ‘stakeholders’ when the issue in question cuts across political affiliation and affects all citizens of the state who are being disenfranchised by the governor’s action.

“The Save Enugu Group is exploring available options to ensure that the illegality being planned by the Ugwanyi administration does not stand and is seeking the understanding as well as the cooperation of genuine Enugu state stakeholders to return the state to the path of democracy,” the group disclosed.

Source: Daily Post News