Condemnation has trailed the swearing-in of elected ward councillors of Etsako East Local Government Area in Benin City by the council chairman, Sunny Ekpetika Ekpeson.
DAILY POST gathered that Sunny Ekpeson, the elected chairman of the council, whose headquarters is in Agenebode, Edo North Senatorial District, was sworn in alongside 17 other elected chairmen by Governor Monday Okpebholo, on Friday, at the Government House, Benin City.
The swearing-in ceremony, which was reportedly held at a luxury hotel in Benin City, was captured in a video circulating on social media.
It was gathered that the inauguration of the legislative arm of the council was supposed to have been held at the administrative headquarters of the local government in Agenebode.
The development is now generating reactions, with legal practitioners describing the action of the chairman as illegal.
Speaking on the issue, a former lawmaker in the Edo State House of Assembly, Luqman Muhammed, said a council chairman has no authority to conduct official business of a Local Government Area outside the territorial boundary of that council.
Muhammed, who is also a legal practitioner, opined that the council chairman’s action was ultra-vires and beyond his powers.
Other lawyers who spoke on conditions of anonymity because of their political affiliations posited that any resolutions, bills or principal officers “elected” at such an inauguration could be challenged in court and declared null and void on the grounds that “proper procedure was not followed.
According to them, Section 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution guarantees the system of democratically elected local government councils, while Section 19 of the Edo State Local Government Law 2000 provides that the Legislative Council “shall sit at such place within the Local Government Area as the Council may from time to time determine.”
The lawyers further argued that the first sitting/inauguration is required to be held at the Council Secretariat and Chambers to reflect that it is a public, official government function and not a private event.
“If the chairman single-handedly inaugurated the legislative arm outside the Local Government Area in an event centre without a council resolution and without emergency justification, that inauguration is legally vulnerable and can be set aside by the High Court.
“The only instance where a legislative body can be inaugurated outside its chambers is where the council chambers were burnt, flooded, or there was a security threat making it impossible to sit there.
“Even then, the council itself must pass a resolution to relocate temporarily, and it should still be within the Local Government Area,” they added.
The legal practitioners were, however, of the opinion that any elected councillor or voter in Etsako East can approach the High Court to seek an order nullifying the proceedings.
Besides the legal implications of the chairman’s action, many residents of the locality also questioned the financial cost of the inauguration.
They noted that accommodating the councillors, chairman, vice chairman, party and council officials, including refreshments in a hotel, was a huge expenditure.
“The total financial expenditure on this event alone runs into several millions,” they alleged.
Efforts to get the reaction of the chairman and the Etsako East Legislative Council were unsuccessful, as he did not pick up calls to his phone number and did not return the calls as of press time.
