Hon. Speaker, House of Representative, Aminu Tambuwal
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The Cross River State Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mr. Mike Igini, has urged the National Assembly to stop the monthly allocations to 511 local government areas across the country that are being run by caretaker committees.
Igini, who stated this in an interview with our correspondent in Calabar on Friday, said it was against the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the affairs of LGAs to be managed by unelected officials.
He lamented that the widespread use of caretaker committees by governors to run the affairs of LGAs was a movement away from democracy, saying it is for that reason that majority of the LGAs had remained unaccountable to the people.
Igini said if the National Assembly could take the step of suspending the allocations to LGAs run by caretaker committees, there was the likelihood of the grass roots being back on the track of democracy.
He said, “Nigeria is under partial democracy. We have three tiers of governance; the federal, the state and the local government tiers, but evidently, the LGs have been turned into vassals of the states held in thrall by party and executive structures that have confiscated the local government tier and strangulated development at the point where it is nearest to Nigerians.
“Of the 36 states and the FCT, only 13 have elected local governments, namely, Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Sokoto, Cross River, Ebonyi, Kwara, Taraba, Jigawa, Ogun, Niger and Zamfara,other states are therefore in breach of section seven of the constitution; an impeachable offence with the implication that a whole 511 LGAs where Nigerians are domiciled do not experience democracy at the moment because it is only 263 LGAs out of 774 that have elected councils.
“The setting up of caretaker committees is a movement away from democracy and this has resulted in the failure of that tier of government. Accountability in all its facets must start from the LGAs. The National Assembly should ensure that there are no allocations to those LGAs in order to reverse the trend.”
The REC said there was an urgent need to review state electoral laws and electoral management at local government levels to reflect the aspiration of voters at the grass roots.
For instance, he said governors should not be the determinants of what the budget the state independent electoral commissions should be.
According to him, this urgent and crucial governance deficit justifies the need to tackle it to a logical conclusion.
