The 796 ex-local government chairmen and councillors in Oyo State have accused Governor Seyi Makinde and the House of Assembly of witch-hunt them, owing to their insistence on being paid the outstanding of their salaries and allowances amounting to N3,374,889,425.60.
The Supreme Court had, in a judgment on May 7, 2021 ordered the Oyo State Government to pay the ex-council chiefs, who the apex court found to have been unlawfully sacked on May 29, 2019 by Makinde, their salaries and allowances for the three years they ought to have served.
By its own computation, the Oyo State Government agreed to pay N4,874,889,425.60 out of which it paid N1.5b, leaving a balance of N3,374,889,425.60, which outstanding judgment debt the Court of Appeal affirmed during a recent hearing on an appeal filed by Makinde, seeking instalment payment of the debt, which request the ex-council chiefs have faulted.
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The ex-council chiefs, in a statement at the weekend, noted that a recent resolution by the House of Assembly, linking some of them with alleged act of fraud, was part of a plot to get back at them, with the intention of compelling them to abandon the outstanding judgment debt.
They added that since March this year when they got an order to garnish the bank accounts of the state government, in an effort to retrieve the outstanding judgment debt, the government and the House of Assembly saw them as a threat and had devised means to witch-hunt them into submission, part of which was the phantom fraud claims.
In the statement signed by three of the affected ex-council chiefs – Ayodeji Abass Aleshinloye, Bashorun Bosun Ajuwon and Oluyinka Jesutoye – they said none of them was ever invited by the House of Assembly in respect
of any investigation, “be it by the 9th or 10th Assembly.”