As a result of the ongoing leadership crisis across the 17 local councils in Plateau State, Usman Baba, Inspector General of Police (IGP), has directed that their secretariats be sealed off.
Members of the state’s House of Assembly on June 1, during a plenary presided over by the speaker, Abok Ayuba, asked Governor Caleb Mutfwang to approve the suspension of the chairmen of the 17 local councils over funds misappropriation.
The governor, subsequently, approved the suspension and appointed interim chairpersons to head the councils, a decision rebelled by the suspended chairmen who insisted that the governor had no right to suspend them.
The face-off nearly caused a riot in the local councils yesterday.
Alabo Alfred, spokesperson for Plateau Police Command, in a statement on Thursday, said the IGP had ordered the state’s Commissioner of Police, Bartholomew Onyeka, to seal off the secretariats to avert a breakdown of law.
He said: “It has become necessary as a result of tensions around the leadership of the Local Government Areas, and the possible threat that supporters and Local Government Chairmen are posing to critical infrastructure, lives and properties in the State
“The decision to take this action is in accordance with the exercise of our constitutional responsibility as the Nigeria Police Force, to ensure that the above doesn’t hold sway on the Plateau.”
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Alfred added that the police cannot sit down and watch things go wrong under their watch.
Prior to the inauguration of the transition management committee by Governor Mutfwang, the embattled chairmen obtained a court injunction restraining the state government from tampering with the democratic structures at the local government level pending the hearing of the substantive suit they filed after the suspension.
