BY: RALPH EJIMKONYE
There is anxiety among Local Government Chairmen and Councillors in Imo State as they await the next move of the State Governor, Hon.Emeka Ihedioha.
Ihedioha assumed office on May 29 as sixth Executive Governor of Imo State and there are fears among the Council Chairmen that they may be dissolved.
Though they were elected during Okorocha’s era, it has however become a norm for new State Governors to do away with them.
Local Governments constitute the driving force of any State Government and most times the Councils are run by loyal party members of the sitting Governor.
In 2011, then Governor Rochas Okorocha had sacked the 27 local government Chairmen. They were mainly of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP while Okorocha had rode to the podium of power on the platform of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA.
Political analysts argue that it may be politically right for State Governors to sack Council Chairmen but within the ambit of the law it is wrong since it is a separate tier of Government.
Ihedioha was one time Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives therefore well versed in the workings of the law.
However some of the Council Chairmen and Councillors are known to have shifted allegiance to the new administration ostensibly in a bid to escape the sack hammer of the new Governor of the State.
But in a State political sentiments count more than the trappings of the law, there are strong indications that the Council Chairmen will be given the boot since in the first place they have no Certificate of Return from the State Electoral umpire, the Imo State Independent Electoral Commission, ISIEC when they were elected into office last year.
In a matter of days, the fate of the Council Bosses will be known as fear and anxiety seem to have enveloped them as they wait with bated breath the next move of the new number one citizen of the State
