I’ll conduct council poll early next year –Ajimobi

OYO State governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, has

promised for the first time in the last four years to

conduct local government elections in the state early

next year.

He made the promise in Ibadan yesterday in a chat

with journalists after he delivered a lecture entitled:

Challenges of Good Governance in an Emerging

Democratic Setting: The Nigerian Perspective, which

kick-started the 67th convocation of the University of

Ibadan.

The opposition political parties in the state had on

several occasions lashed Ajimobi for his refusal to

conduct council election throughout his first term in

office from 2011 to 2015. The opposition had said that

Ajimobi was afraid that the ruling All Progressives

Congress (APC) might not win several of the 33 local

government areas of the state, thereby creating

serious problems for his bid for second term in office.

Ajimobi, who stated that the council election was

delayed for him to see the outcome of the 2015 gov­

ernorship poll in the state, assured that there would be

no further impediments to the conduct of the election,

“ and now that we have seen it (outcome of the 2015

general elections), I can assure you that in the next

couple of weeks, something will be done.

“I wanted to avoid Christmas gift. I was thinking that

in December, we would start gathering our local

government chairmen. But I can tell you that

immediately after then, there would be election.

“We believe most sincerely in the local government

and we are going to conduct chairmanship election

into it soon.”

Ajimobi, however, stated that caretaker committees

would be put in place for the 33 local government

areas of the state any moment from now.

But the governor also dismissed the insinuation that

his administration refused to conduct the poll because

he was afraid of failure.

He explained that the outcome of this year’s general

elections showed that the generality of the state still

prefer APC to other parties in the state.

“We are not afraid of the opposition taking over. We

won the election. So, how can the opposition take

over? If you look at the result, where will they take

over? If you take the whole of Ibadan and less city

election, we won. When you go to Oke Ogun, we won;

when you go to Ibarapa, we won; when you go to Oyo,

we won. Ogbomoso is the only place where we did

not win, but we came second. So, where will they take

over? It is not possible”, he stressed.