The Movement for Credible Elections, MCE has condemned the complicity of the Federal Government and the Police Authorities in allowing local government councils in Osun State to be subjected to illegal occupation by impostors in-spite of the express ruling of Courts of competent jurisdiction.
The National Secretariat of the newly launched Movement rising from an emergency meeting on Friday, recalled that the federal high court sitting in Osogbo had already nullified the tenure of the erstwhile chairmen and councilors sponsored by the All Progressives Congress, APC in November 2022, a decision that was subsequently upheld by the Court of Appeal on February 10, 2025 and reaffirmed on June 13, 2025 on the grounds that their elections were conducted in clear violation of the requirements of the law.
MCE also unequivocally condemned the continued diversion and withholding of statutory allocations due to the Osun local governments of Osun State, describing such actions as unlawful, immoral, and a dangerous abuse of the Nigerian Constitution.
It added that the action was aimed at frustrating and coercing the Osun state government duly elected on a party platform different from the party ruling at the federal level.
MCE also queried the mandate under which the APC chairmen and councilors were currently running Osun local government having
already admitted that their so-called tenure had expired and approached the court for tenure elongation, a case which is yet to be heard by the court.
“So under what authority are they holding unto the local governments and administering local government funds, if by the state law it’s only career civil servants that can be signatories to the Local Governments accounts”
The movement further queried the role of the United Bank for Africa, UBA in the whole saga, asking why UBA is taking subversive directives from Abuja and Leaders of Osun APC paying out councils funds to politicians without lawful mandates? Why is the UBA violating Osun LG laws?
Speaking on behalf of the Movement, the Head of Secretariat, Che Olawale Okunniyi, described such unlawful occupation of council Secretariat by APC Chairmen and Councilors as a brazen subversion of the rule of law and democratic order of the country.
It condemned the Federal Government and the Police for emboldening the illegal occupants to continue to hold the state to ransom; boasting that they won’t leave the council Secretariat in-spite of subsisting court orders
MCE however noted that “In this imposed impunity, those suffering the most are primarily retirees, health care workers and the masses in general etc. So, why would the Federal Government and her agents in Abuja taking joy in the sufferings and hardship of the Osun people?
The MCE noted that the local government system is a constitutionally recognized autonomous tier of government and that statutory allocations to councils do not belong to the Federal Government or the ruling Party but to the people at the grassroots. According to the Movement, withholding these funds has translated directly into unpaid salaries, crippled primary healthcare services, abandoned basic education responsibilities, and untold suffering of the ordinary citizens in Osun.
The MCE warned that history is repeating itself in a most unfortunate way, stressing that the act of playing politics with local government allocations has long been denounced by democrats, the civil society, the courts and Tinubu himself during his tenure as Governor; as violation of democratic federalism, which Nigeria practices.
The Movement further cautioned that continuing on this path poses grave dangers to Nigeria’s democracy, the rule of law, and national cohesion. It warned that “normalising financial strangulation of states and local governments based on partisan schemes sets a precedence that could destabilize Nigeria’s democratic order.”
The Movement reaffirmed its commitment to defending democracy and constitutionalism through popular advocacy for credible elections and called on the civil society, labour, youths, professional bodies, and all lovers of democracy to be on the alert to storm Osun State in February to intervene in what is perceived as grave injustice against the suffering masses of Osun.
