CONSTITUTIONAL crisis is brewing between Plateau State Government and local government chairmen as a result of court injunction restraining the State Governor, Simon Lalong, from dissolving the 17 council chairmen and the refusal of the government to heed to the order of the court on the premise that it is simply exercising his power as provided for under 2005 Local Government Law, which is the valid and subsisting law creating the local government.

Under that Law, the Chief Executive of the state has the prerogative to dissolve elected local government chairmen at will.

Lalong in a statement through his Director of Press Affairs, Mr. Samuel Emmanuel Nanle, had warned the local government chairmen not to forcefully enter their respective offices after their dissolution as planned, adding that government will view such action as an affront.

The Governor further warned, “Government would not fold it hands and watch citizens engage in acts that are capable of disrupting the fragile peace in the state and warned them to desist from any act that might disrupt the peace in the state.

“It is therefore in furtherance to this that Governor Simon Bako Lalong has directed the Commissioner of Police and all Directors of Personnel Management to ensure the premises of the various Local Government Councils are secured from mischief makers and for all who turned themselves into a threat to peace on the Plateau to be brought to book; there shall be no sacred cows in Government’s efforts to ensure the security of lives and property,” the Governor threatened.