By: Manoah Kikekon
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| Segun Onilude and Babatunde Hunpe |
BADAGRY, LAGOS – The administration of the Badagry Local Government has issued a rebuttal against recent reports, clarifying that the current Executive Chairman, Hon. Babatunde Hunpe, is not responsible for the recent disengagement of non-pensionable staff. The council asserts the action was a continuation of a process initiated by the immediate past chairman, Hon. Segun Onilude.
The clarification comes in response to a publication by Badagry Today which alleged that Hon. Hunpe had "sacked all non-pensionable staff employed under his predecessor" merely two months into his tenure. The report claimed the staff were to be replaced with the chairman's own appointees, a claim the local government now vehemently denies.
In an official statement released to set the record straight, the Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman, Mr. Kriko Augustine, provided a detailed timeline of events.
Augustine stated that the disengagement of the workers in question was formally executed by the former Chairman, Hon. Onilude Olusegun Adeniran, on July 25, 2025, as part of the standard dissolution of all political appointees and aides at the end of an administration. He emphasized that the current administration is merely enforcing a decision that was already made.
Further elaborating on the nature of the employment, the council's statement sought to clarify common misconceptions about local government staffing. "Across all Local Governments and Local Council Development Areas, it is standard practice to engage non-pensionable staff to complement pensionable workers," the statement read. It crucially added that these "casual or ad-hoc employees do not 'belong' to any chairman, past or present. They are not Onilude’s workers, neither are they Hunpe’s hirees."
The statement concluded by framing the recent enforcement action not as a new policy by Hunpe, but as the administrative follow-through on the previous administration's directive.
The disengagement letters received by staff in late August 2025 are presented as the formal implementation of the dissolution announced by Hon. Onilude in July. This narrative positions the current council's role as one of procedural adherence rather than initiating a new wave of terminations.