Your Hope Is Dead On Arrival, We Will Not Support Tinubu’s Re-Election – Local Govt Chairmen Send Warning To Okpebholo

Local Government Council Chairmen in Edo State have distanced themselves from reports claiming that they  have defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Speaking via a a statement by the Forum of Edo State Local Government Councils Press Secretaries signed by Benjamin Atu, the chairmen insisted that it was a show of shame and a desperate ploy for Governor Monday Okpebholo to welcome some councillors into the APC as illegal acting chairmen.

They insisted that the governor was trying to mislead President Bola Tinubu into the charade that Edo Local Government Council Chairmen have defected in support of his 2027 Presidential bid.

The Council Chairmen described the speech of the Governor in the gathering as empty as he failed to find lasting solution to the infrastructure, security and economic challenges that are obvious across all local Government Councils in the State under his watch.

The statement read in part, “We wish to inform the general public that those who defected were Councillors without political relevance to deliver their ward. No duely elected local government Council Chairman defected or was present in the gathering where money was shared to Councilors like helpless nursery school play class pupils in need of free lunch. Elected Chairmen wish to distance themselves from the charade and called on the Nigerian National Media to stop misleading the public with misleading Newspaper headlines that doesn’t add up to the reality.”

Atu frowned against the misleading statements of the Governor saying “If those whom the Governor received are the people he depends upon to consolidate his hold on the polity of the state and to deliver Tinubu in 2027, then his hope is a mirage and dead on arrival.

“Local Government Councils have been thrown into darkness and under development without leadership and without direction since the Governor forced elected Chairmen out of office using political thugs and security agents over three months ago”

According to them, the State’s resources that was wasted to gather and bribe councillors would have been sufficient to mobilise security agents and grassroots Vigilante groups to checkmate the ravaging insecurity across the State particularly in Edo North, they said.

They maintained that the Governor has the opportunity of redeeming his image by restoring elected council Chairmen but has decided to be a victim of his own Gospel.