May 13, (THEWILL)- The outcome of the local government polls conducted separately on the same day, Saturday April 27, 2024 in Gombe and Oyo States have once again resulted in more calls for local government financial and administrative autonomy in the country.
Coming at a time the National Assembly is embarking on Constitutional amendment, the call by stakeholders for LG autonomy has become shrill and strident.
Recall that in the council polls conducted in Gombe and Oyo States, the governing party swept all the seats in the contest. While the All Progressives Congress won all the 11 chairmanship seats and 114 councillors positions in Gombe State, the governing Peoples Democratic Party in Oyo State swept all the 33 chairmanship seats and over 300 councillors positions in the state.
Expectedly, the opposition PDP chapter in Gombe rejected the outcome of the exercise, claiming that it was a travesty of democracy and mere drama, a claim that Governor Inuwa Yahaya brushed aside on Monday, April 28 and swore-in the elected Chairman.
Similarly, in Oyo state where the Chairman of Oyo State Independent Electoral Commission (OYSIEC), Aare Isiaka Abiola Olagunju, SAN, presented the Certificates of Return to the thirty-three (33) Chairmen and Vice Chairmen at the Commission’s Headquarters, Agodi Quarters, Ibadan on Friday, May 10, 2024, the opposition APC described the election as a sham, capable of destabilising the state.
Condemning this political trend, the National Chairman of the umbrella body of political parties in Nigeria, the Inter-Party Advisory Council, IPAC, Yusuf Dantalle, said many politicians in Nigeria see politics as business. He spoke at a recent event attended by THEWILL.
Dantalle contended that democracy is only practised at the state and national level, while the grassroots at the local government, where it mattered most, are short-changed. The reason, he adduced, is that some governors maintain a stranglehold on the electoral process through state independent electoral commissions. Inclusive governance at the grassroots, he noted, hardly takes place as the elected Chairman stays in office at the behest of state governors.
He said that plans are afoot by his administration, which came into office in November 2023, to reorganise the parties through a well-articulated code of conduct for political parties before the 2027 General Election.
Last Friday, a former member of the House of Representatives, Chief Sam Onuigbo, joined the growing call for LGA autonomy, saying that the review of the 1999 Constitution will not be complete without true devolution of power to the local government councils. He said though the Constitution recognises the LGAs as the third tier of governance, “their functionality has been largely undermined by state governors who are practically in charge of their administration.”
He said that allowing state independent electoral commissions to conduct local government elections exposes the system to manipulation by governors whose parties win all available chairmanship seats and councillorship positions.
He said, “It is the party at Government House that wins all the elections. That is the problem. So, let us take out the state independent electoral commissions or let the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, conduct the elections so that we can have some balance and competitive spirit.”
He also called for a review of the joint account system that allows the governors to manipulate the finances of the LGAs.
Coming at a time the National Assembly is embarking on a review of the Constitution, having on February 14, 2024 inaugurated a 45-member Constitution Review Committee of the 1999 Constitution, chaired by the Deputy Senate President, Barau Jibrin, and the House Committee chaired by Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Kalu, stakeholders are calling on the senior lawmakers to look into the ambiguity in Section 7 (1) of the 1999 Constitution on local government administration in the country.
The section guarantees the system of local government with democratically elected chairmen, but it says in another tone that state houses of assembly should set up an economic planning board for the councils. This creates a loophole which governors exploit through the assemblies to make laws for the councils, according to relevant stakeholders.
In addition, section 162 (6), which created the “State Local Government Accounts,” is also seen to aid the mismanagement of local government funds by state governments.
According to Robert Clark, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, the status of local governments councils is among the three key provisions of the 1999 Constitution that should be amended.
For the National Coordinator of Kwara Progressives Development Movement, Alhaji Mohammed Mariam-Alhassan, it is the loopholes in the constitution that governors who constitute transition committees before conducting local government polls also exploit.
Using Kwara State as an example, Alhaji Marriam Al-Hassan alleged that governance at the local government level had remained in the hands of a few individuals under the Transition Implementation Committee (TIC) arrangement.
He appealed to President Bola Tinubu to dissolve the alleged illegally constituted TIC arrangement put in place by the state government for over four years, adding that, “it is contrary to the Section 7 (1) and Section 14 (1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.
According to him, the Constitution specified years of tenure and period of service in the office for duly elected Executive Council members.
Speaking on this development on Saturday, the Publicity Secretary of the PDP in Kwara State, Olusegun Olusola Adewara, said the failure of the state government and the state independent electoral commission to conduct LGA polls for over four years has crippled governance at the grassroots and heightened insecurity in the state.
Chairman of the electoral body, Alhaji Okanla Baba, had promised to conduct the poll into the councils in February, but later postponed it.
“These are the reasons why it is absolutely important that in the current constitutional review, the National Assembly have to take a critical look at the local government system,” said Onuigbo, who once represented Ikwuano/Umuahia North Federal Constituency at the 9th NASS.
Amos Esele is the Acting Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
