Agenda Papers Editorial: Time to stop conduct of charade called local government elections by state governments

The place of the local government as a third tier of government cannot be overemphasized. The reason for this is that local government is the nearest tier that is close to the people as they are in the grassroots.

For the avoidance of doubt we are talking about 774 local government areas in Nigeria and that is huge enough to make an impact in governance if the tier of government is given it’s proper place in the scheme of things.

It is on that note that we had wide jubilation recently when the supreme court gave a judgement proclaiming the financial autonomy of local government in the country.

With the judgement it means that the federal allocation is accruable to local government areas that will go straight to them and not pass through the state government first.

If financial autonomy is achieved for the local government then it is still not complete if that tier of government does not have political autonomy.. Real political autonomy comes with proper conduct of elections to elect chairmen and councillors into the councils.

This is where we are concerned about what is happening in the local government administration in Nigeria as of today. Prior to this judgement we see governors hand-picking and selecting chairmen of the local government at their own whims and caprices. As they select randomly they also sack them at will. It may not be surprising to hear that a council chairman appointed six months ago is removed and another one appointed. This made the local government not to have a structured tenure of say three or four years of uninterrupted term of office.

It is on record that most states have not conducted local government elections for a period spanning ten years or more and this is not good for our democracy development.

Even the states that have conducted local government elections, the process before, during and after the conduct of the election remain much to be desired.

The conduct of these elections are normally done by state Governors using state electoral commissions. It is the governors that appoint the chairmen and commissioners of these electoral commissions and the saying that he who pays the piper dictates the tune comes to play with what they call elections.

Available statistics have shown over time that local government elections conducted by state electoral commissions of a sitting governor return 100% or 99.5% of the results in favour of the governor’s ruling party or at worst the candidates and political party that the governor supports. This is not supposed to be so.

It is as a result of this that in majority of the cases opposition political parties usually pull out of the election because they already know the result of the election even before the casting of the first vote.

A typical example is the conduct of the local government elections in Anambra, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Imo, Kogi states recently.

In Anambra state the APGA which is the party of Governor Soludo won all the local government areas, the same thing applicable to Akwa Ibom where PDP won almost all the councils. Few days ago Kogi state conducted its own local government elections and Governor Ododo APC won virtually all the councils, making the opposition and election observers say that the conduct of Kogi local government elections was an embarrassment to democracy.

To further buttress the point that these charade should stop a new twist was introduced in Rivers local government elections where a relatively unknown and unpopular party APP sponsored by the sitting governor Fubura won almost all the local government areas in the state.Pundits are now wondering how that is possible in a state that is traditionally PDP with a strong opposition of APC.

The same scenario is about being replicated in Abia state where governor Alex Otti is now trying to do by positioning Zenith Labour party against his own Labour party. I don’t think we need a soothsayer to tell the outcome of the election even before the casting of the first vote

It is on this note that we call for immediate stoppage of the conduct of local government elections by state governments. There should be no further waste of scarce public funds in the conduct of an election where the state governor’s party or candidates will all emerge victorious.

Local government elections should be conducted by a real and truly independent national electoral commission. The independent electoral commission should not be the one headed by somebody like Mahmood Yakubu but must be headed by an unbiased umpire.

With this in place there will be real struggle and contest for power by all the political parties in a clear and impartial field devoid of the influence and interference of the governors.

In line with this thought it may not be out of place to call for immediate outlawing of the state electoral commissions to pave way for INEC to take over the conduct of the local government elections.

We cannot be talking of local government autonomy without ensuring political autonomy of the local government. This is because if the chairmen and councillors are not truly elected but selected by the state governors there is no way they will perform as they will be mere puppets and appendages of the governor.

If Nigeria really want to achieve grassroots development using the instrumentality of local government as the real third tier of government the time is now ripe to stop this embarrassment and charade they call conduct of elections by state sponsored electoral commissions.