A plot by the Delta State Governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, to hand over the administration of the 25 local government council areas in the state to caretaker committees has been uncovered.
Our correspondent gathered that towards this end, Okowa has allegedly put in place machinery for the sacking of the chairman and board members of the Delta State Independent Electoral Commission constituted by his predecessor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, to enable him to appoint his own trusted allies into the commission.
Gov Okowa wants only his loyalists to conduct LG poll
The alleged move by the governor, it was learnt, became imperative to enable him to ‘plant’ his men in DSIEC, handover the councils to the various Heads of Personnel Management, who would manage the LGAs pending the conduct of local government election in April 2018.
Governor Okowa had earlier vowed that he would never run the councils with caretaker committees.
But with this recent development, council polls in the state may not hold this year, contrary to earlier claims by the DSIEC’s Chairman, Mr. Moses Ogbe, who said the commission was preparing to conduct the LG elections.
It was also gathered that the governor had already allegedly penned down a new secretary for DSIEC in preparation for the laying off of its current members, whose statutory five-year tenure ought to end next year.
Sources also revealed that Ogbe and others would be settled with the full payment of their severance packages so that the governor could appoint his own men, whose names may be announced by December 2017. The new members of the commission are expected to be saddled with the responsibility of the conduct of the council elections in 2018.
According to a dependable source, who pleaded anonymity, Governor Okowa would hand over the councils to the HPMs, each of who had allegedly been directed to provide the sum of N5 million, in appreciation of the gesture at the expiration of the tenure of the elected council chairmen.
A Government House source allegedly fingered the Principal Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Hilary Ibegbulem, as being the one who directed the council HPMs to provide the total sum of N125million in appreciation for the gesture, a privilege which could have been given to a constituted caretaker committee.
One of the commissioners in DSIEC, who pleaded anonymity, told our correspondent that going by the electoral calendar, the tenure of elected political office holders at the local government level in Delta State would expire in October.
He said, “They have less than four months in their various offices. And by the electoral laws, DSIEC, with the mandate of Governor Okowa, ought to have released the timetable for the conduct of the council elections.”
