Constitutionally, we have
774 local government areas (LGAs) in Nigeria today. Some states have gone ahead
to create additional units referred to as local community development areas
(LCDAs). Over seventy percent of these LGAs and LCDAs are under the siege of a
strange and autocratic leadership concept called interim management committee
(IMC) and popularly referred to as caretaker committee (CTC). Under the IMC
structure, state governors in wicked collaboration with their different state
houses of assembly unilaterally hand pick cronies and proxies to sit and act as
sole administrators of local councils with a few other people selected via
absolutely unconstitutional means to oversee the administration at the local
level for periods ranging from three months to three years in some instances.
The case of Anambra State
is very interesting, undemocratic, irritating and pathetic. The governor of
that state for whatever reasons has consistently refused to conduct election
into local councils in the last six years of his tenure and reports even have
it that there has not been any local government election in Anambra State over
the past ten years.
Incidentally, this
particular governor came into office via an election process that was not just
clumsy but also exhaustive to say the least. One would expect, that considering
the wearisome circumstances that eventually led to his emergence as governor,
he would be one of the staunchest advocates of democratic tenets, institutions
and the rule of law to put it in clear terms. The opposite is the case. This
man has held the state down in an emperor-like manner, playing to the gallery
when occasion demands especially at national events. For those who care to
know, I am one the very few who believe Anambra State can be far better than
what we have on ground today given her vast potentials and manpower. If you are
in doubt, check nearby Enugu and Imo States.
It is however, equally
important to note that the governor of Anambra is not alone in this onslaught
against democracy at the grassroots level. He has his co-travelers in almost
every region of this country. They are so arrogant and ignorant that sometimes
you tend to wonder how some of them became governor in the first instance. They
make the loudest noise when it comes to issues of resource control, true fiscal
federalism, freedom of expression, corruption, marginalization, sovereign
national conference, regional integration and segregation and all those big-big
English that have no meaning to the common man and adds little or no value to
human existence. They lie from all sides of their mouths and most of them are
worse than traitors. My take is that we must bring these state governors to
obey the laws and the same procedures that brought them to us.
In the midst of this
conspiracy, we must however, commend the governors of the eleven states were we
now have properly elected representatives of the people as local council
chairmen and councilors. I want to single out Jigawa and Lagos State in this
regard. The case of Lagos would have been excellently remarkable but for the
series of allegations and counter-allegations from various angles pointing to
the deliberate manipulation of the outcome of what would have been a very
perfect model for others to follow. We all saw the immaturity and
highhandedness that played out in the process. Eventually, the LG elections
conducted in Lagos was far from being free and fair. That notwithstanding, it
is still a step away from the quagmire of deliberately muzzling arm of
government at the expense of another arm. As far as the case of Lagos is
concerned, I hold the belief that unfairness to one is unfairness to all but in
any case I am aware that the opposition is challenging the results in the
courts.
What genuine democrats
must continue to remember is the fact that minority must have their say even
when the majority will have their way. When you stifle the minority, you are
technically setting yourself up for possible counter insurgence, a situation
that may likely breed internal terrorism.
The case of Jigawa on the
other hand is instructive; all the twenty seven local government areas in that
state have properly elected local council chairmen and councilors. That state
is working and those who assume that nothing is happening up north should make
a trip to Dutse. I have travelled extensively across Nigeria in the past twelve
months and I have observed the quantum of development especially across Jigawa
State. One thing that is working is the governor’s choice to allow for
democracy to run its full course at the local government level. This
disposition is one of the core reasons why the state is advancing
developmentally in terms of infrastructure, agriculture, manpower development,
education, health, women and youth empowerment.
I don’t really buy the
bundle of arguments put forward by some of these governors who have
deliberately and technically decided to kill democracy at the grassroots level.
They don’t have any excuse under heaven and I think we must all rise up to
challenge them legally. The attitude of these governors can be likened to that
of a President refusing to allow for governorship elections in federating
states. By now, some of these governors would have instigated all kinds of
crisis to make the nation ungovernable for such president. They will call him a
tyrant and mobilize mobs to occupy the state capitals.
The truth is that we all
must agree, that any governor that have so far refused to conduct local
government elections or set in motion the process of election at that level in
their various states are despotic, undemocratic and should be recommended for
impeachment if their state houses of assembly are still alive. But then,
majority of the state assemblies are equally culpable in this charade. I wish
the masses know how many billions go down the drain as settlement between
governors and houses of assembly. The bulk of the money meant for development
goes directly to the pockets of a few crooks, to take care of their newly
acquired appetite and their foreign prostitutes.
One of the reasons why
state governors and their houses of assembly are afraid of conducting elections
at the local government level is the massive
looting of state funds meant for grassroots development via the constitutional
anomaly called Joint Account. Technical looting is going on behind the
scene and the state governors are settling house members heavily to keep it
that way. Their arguments are always shallow and suspicious and it is only the unschooled
that will think they are sane. My suggestion here is total abolition of
anything called joint accounts between states and local governments. And this
brings me to the clamour for an amendment of the constitution in favour of
local government autonomy. It is what we need in this country right now.
Another reason I have
observed is the remote desire of state governors to keep the poverty structure
of their various states intact so as to make economic empowerment and
development a function of their crowded emotion. By this, I mean they enjoy
dispensing favour to only those who bootlick around them or run dirty errands
for them with funds meant for the development of local government areas. A
governor sits in the snug government house and awards a contract for a remote
rural road in a community hundreds of miles away to a stooge without due
process or any form of community input. Then you have a situation again where
the governor uses the resources that would have provided clean water for rural
dwellers in some villages to erect useless statues within the state capital in
the name of urban renewal. It is immoral and like I say so often, these men
will reap the whirlwind either here or the hereafter. Urban renewal in the face
of extreme urban poverty will eventually lead to urban ruin.
The deliberate attempt to
indirectly continue to promote a sense of insecurity which shields governors
from being accountable to the people they govern is another major reason why
they are afraid to have elected local government administrators at the
grassroots level. They want people to continuously be afraid and thereby forget
about asking questions about how government resources are being spent, so they
tactically sell fear to the public by sponsoring apprehensive events. Whereas
having elected local government administrators in charge of council areas will
somehow drastically shrink their powers and desire to be the alpha and omega in
their states. By deliberately promoting insecurity, governors will also have
more security votes to appropriate for their newly acquired luxurious
lifestyle. It will allow them to acquire more properties abroad and have more
offshore accounts using divers front.
The others issues are
personal ego which will not just kill democracy but give birth to a dangerous
dimension of chaos which may be greater than what we see Boko Haram doing
especially in the north-east region. At the peak of this insensitivity is sheer
wickedness. The baseline of course is the
fact that all these add up to one thing, and that is corruption with a capital
c. The madness of wanting to take everything to oneself at the expense of the
entire society is a wicked phenomenon. I think it is senseless to work against
the same system that brought you to public relevance just because you now feel
insecure in your new position. One of my friends argues extensively that most
of these governors were never democrats in the true sense of the word, they are
mere opportunists and they will not change until they are dragged out by vicious
means.
I hope the twenty five
other governors who are yet to decide on making democracy work in their states
will see this as a challenge and set in motion almost immediately the necessary
machinery to have local government elections conducted under a free and fair
atmosphere. The National Assembly should also rise to the occasion. While we
support their new found love for probes and more probes, I sincerely think they
should compel State Governors to conduct local government elections forthwith.
The federal government should also take a drastic action against these states
by withholding all allocations to local council under the strange contraption called
interim management committee (IMC) and popularly referred to as local
government caretaker committee. These allocations should only be released to
local governments under duly elected representatives.
And for those who continue
to make a jest of the system by using State Independent Electoral Commissions
(SIECs) to stage manage LG elections, we have to warn them that that season of
appointing highly prejudiced and partisan characters to constitute state
independent electoral commissions to manipulate LG elections in favour of their
party is gradually coming to an end in Nigeria. Now it is one man, one vote. I
suggest that we include representatives of INEC, the SSS, the Nigerian Police and
the Bench in SIECs. I also want to suggest that results of local council
elections should henceforth be declared on a polling booth by polling booth
basis. Anything short of this is sham. And as for the supposed powerful who sit
in the recess of their palace to cook results election results at will, terror
will soon knock at you doors.
Sola Kolawole
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