May 27, (THEWILL)- On May 19, 2024, Anambra State joined 16 other states that are in violation of the Section 7 of the Constitution when it sacked all the 21 local government transition chairmen in the state and set about replacing them rather than set in motion the process for the conduct of democratically elected chairmen at the grassroots.
Section 7 (1) of the Constitution declares: “The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this Constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the Government of every State shall, subject to section 8 of this Constitution, ensure their existence under a Law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils…”
For the 17 states, insecurity, finance, political and legal battles have always been the excuse for violating this constitutional mandate. While states in violent prone geopolitical zones like the North-East and North-West can be excused on the ground of insecurity, even though Adamawa in the North-East runs an elected local government system, just as five out of seven states in the insurgency-racked North-West, namely, Kano, Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina and Kebbi (except Zamfara and Sokoto), have elected LGAs, many other defaulting states scattered across the other four geo-political zones are playing politics with the issue.
It got so bad that the Supreme Court had to wade in by extant judgements, first in July 2014, when the apex court ruled that state governors lack the power to sack elected council officials. In 2019, the apex court again deepened the earlier ruling by stating that councils without elected officials should not receive federal allocation.
This patent violation of these ruling by state governors prompted the Federal Government to ensure direct allocations to the councils through the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, guidelines on the management of local governments’ funds. The governors still aborted the plan.
For Anambra State, LGA is yet to be conducted 10 years after the Peter Obi Administration conducted one in 2014.
So, when Governor Charles Soludo directed the sacked chairmen to hand over the affairs of the councils to the Heads of Local Government Administration, HLGA, “following the expiration of your tenure as Transition Committee Chairman,” not a few comments were heard, many of them critical. Before the sacking of the committee men, the governor had directed that party stakeholders should nominate candidates in their local government areas for transition committees.
He said that out of the three, one must be a woman from the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) stakeholders.
Special Adviser to the governor on political matters, Dr Alex Obiogbolu, had conveyed the message to all the transition committee chairmen.
The directive said: “The party stakeholders in each local government area are expected to meet on May 18 or 19, 2024, to consider and recommend for his consideration, three persons for the position of TC Chairman and three persons for local government education secretaries.
“The three recommendations for transition committee chairmen shall include, at least, one woman; while the three recommendations for education secretary shall be two women and one man.”
Naturally, opposition parties and major stakeholders who had been calling for elections into the local government system, went to town with the cry that the government was stifling the local government system through transition committee chairmen.
A representative voice of the public reaction is that of Honourable Afam Ogene, a Labour Party member representing Ogbaru Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives
He said that records showed that Governor Soludo changed LGA Transition Committee members every three months and had, therefore, made these curious changes seven times since assumption of office in 2022.
“That, to me, would be an inglorious record by a democratically elected governor. This puppeteering style of leadership, which toys with the destiny, aspiration and desires of the grassroots, must be resisted and not allowed to continue to shrink the development potential of the LGAs.
“The local government ought to be the most important tier of government, as envisaged by the Nigerian Constitution, because it’s not only the tier that is closest to the people, but it is also the obvious foundation of both the sub-national and the Federal Government and should, therefore, not be at the whims of state governors.
Ogene laments that such undemocratic practice of appointing LGA administrators, rather than democratic election, is an enabler of impunity and lack of democratic accountability and it also hurts transparency in the local government councils and the state as a whole, as those so appointed will only scramble for personal interests during the three months of their stay in office.
Valentine Ozigbo, a former governorship aspirant and now Labour Party chieftain said, “Over the past two years, approximately N175 billion may have accrued to these LGAs. Now, imagine the impact this substantial sum could have had on schools, healthcare institutions, market, and the lives of the people in LGAs like Ayamelum, Ogbaru, Idemili South, and Ekwusigo, which have felt little to no government presence.
“Consider that this approximated N175 billion is not part of the Anambra State Government’s allocation or the internally generated revenue in the state.
Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Sir Paul Nwosu, disagrees with Ogene and Ozigbo. In an interview with THEWILL, he said Governor Soludo was not unaware of the importance of democratically elected LGA in deepening democratic governance, but he was meticulous in preparing the ground for election by putting the local government areas on sound financial and administrative footing.
Nwosu said there was nothing peculiar to Anambra in terms of running local government areas with transition committees. He however noted that although the governor promised to conduct local government polls, he wants to ensure that certain issues related to finance and administration have to be sorted out before conducting an election.
“These issues must be sorted out first or we will have local government councils that cannot be able to carry out their functions. Governor Soludo is a thorough person and wants to do things that will stand the test of time. You are talking about managing the grassroots with quite a number of life-changing functions like schools, markets and other responsibilities to carry out. We have to tighten some of these fundamentals so that they would not go cap in hand to the government. The governor understands the sanctity of local government councils.
He said there is a huge prospect that the state government would soon conduct local government elections, adding that at the appropriate time, it will release the details of the plan.”
When asked for the appropriate time, Nwosu simply replied, “You wait and see.” On Friday, May 24, 2024, a Federal High Court waded into the matter. Delivering judgement on an ex parte application filed by a legal practitioner, Chukwebuka Mmeni, Justice Bello Kawo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, restrained both the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Minister of Finance from remitting funds from the 21 LGAs of Anambra State, pending the determination of the suit that was brought before it. It also directed the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, to probe the funds that accrued to the state between 2022 and 2024.
About the Author
Amos Esele is the Acting Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
