“In
most states, especially in the north where we don’t have oil and co, the
ministry of local government in the state is regarded as the ministry of
petroleum resources.
“So we
all know when funds are allocated to the councils. Instead of getting to the
councils, they are hijacked at that (state) level and appropriated according to
the whims of the powers that be.
On
what is to be done, Dogara said: “We will have to make this local government
system a bit independent”.
Governors who refuse to conduct council elections should be
removed from office for gross violation of the Constitution, House Speaker
Yakubu Dogara has said.
He accused governors of violating the 1999 Constitution by
undermining local councils’ independence.
 |
| Mr. Yakubu Dogara, Speaker, House of Reps. |
The Speaker accused governors of using local government
funds instead of making the money available to the councils.
He described the state/local government joint accounts as
“evil”, adding that governors have emasculated councils and turned them into
cash cows.
According to him, it is unfortunate that most governors have
“pocketed” Houses of Assembly, making them toothless, hence their inability to
impeach governors who violate the constitution.
To Dogara, failure to conduct council elections amounts to
“serious violation of the provisions of the constitution”, which he said was
“one of the biggest grounds for impeachment”.
He said: “As a matter of fact, joint account is one of the
biggest evils because it gives the authority to local government ministries in
the state.
“In most states, especially in the north where we don’t have
oil and co, the ministry of local government in the state is regarded as the
ministry of petroleum resources.
“So we all know when funds are allocated to the councils.
Instead of getting to the councils, they are hijacked at that (state) level and
appropriated according to the whims of the powers that be.
On what is to be done, Dogara said: “We will have to make
this local government system a bit independent.
“I am not saying absolute independence because we may not
achieve that since ours is a strong federation. It is not a weak federation
like what you have in the United States where councils and states join their
own money and then appropriate it and pay royalties in taxes to the federal
government.
“So, what we can therefore do is make sure that in the
spirit of the constitution, the local government administration is
democratically-elected to ensure that by provision of the constitution, that
any local government that is not democratically constituted will not have
access to any funding from the federation.
“That was the problem we had, there was this issue of Lagos
creating more councils and then President Olusegun Obasanjo decided to deny
them allocation from the federation account before the courts said you are just
a trustee, you can’t do that. As a matter of fact, the money does not belong to
the Federal Republic of Nigeria. So, we must cure that
“We talked about financial autonomy, which is the biggest.
We want to guarantee that by ensuring that councils submit their respective
account numbers to the federal government where money meant for them are paid
directly without any intervening authority or third party on the chain so that
council authorities and citizens that live in those local governments will know
that this is what is coming.
“The money is published every month so they know. And to be
able to achieve this, I did talk about the state legislators needing some form
of autonomy and we want to give them that. That will definitely be in the
proposal that will be going out to them to vote on. We talked about ensuring
democracy, credible elections at the third tier of government and we agreed, it
was your suggestion actually, and I concurred that state independent electoral
commissions have never worked and will never work. So our best bet is to make
sure that they are eliminated.”
As a way out of the problem, the Speaker said any state
whose councils are run by caretaker committees should not get federal
allocations.
“What we are trying to say is, okay, if your local
government administration is caretaker, you cannot draw funds from the federation
account. That should be a provision of the constitution itself,” he said.
Dogara wants State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs)
abolished. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should conduct
council elections, he said.
In an interview, Dogara said the constitution provides that
the local government officials must be democratically-elected, but very few of
them have elected executives running their affairs.
“It is a system that is in crisis. Since 1999 when we had
this latest advent of politics, I don’t want to go back to the days of military
regime, you will attest to the fact that there is hardly any local government
that has lived up to its constitutional mandate and the reasons are quite
obvious,” he said.
According to him, in other democracies such as Brazil, India
and the United States, there are democratically elected leaders for the
councils’ executive, legislature, courts and police.
“But in Nigeria, the governor will sit in the state
executive meeting and they will come up with a resolution that they have sacked
an elected council executive and then they appoint council caretaker
committees. And to be candid, that is a gross violation of the constitution.
“I don’t know if the framers were able to anticipate that
that may likely be the situation that most of the governors will violate the
powers that were assigned to the states with respect to local governments under
the constitution.
“That has become the norm rather than the exception, where
majority of the councils in Nigeria, even as we speak in this era of change and
the promise All Progressives Congress (APC) made, you will be surprised that
majority of the area councils are run by caretaker councils and there is no
where in the constitution where caretaker is mentioned,” Dogara said.
The speaker said the joint account is “one of the biggest
evils” bedeviling local government areas.
His words: “In most states, especially in the North where we
don’t have oil and co, the ministry of local government is regarded as the ministry
of petroleum resources.
“So, we all know when funds are allocated to the councils,
instead of getting to the councils, they are hijacked at that level and
appropriated according to the whims of the powers that be.”
The solution, Dogara said, is a Constitution amendment to
make councils less subject to laws passed by the state assemblies.
“For us to tackle this problem, since they are
constitutional, it means that the only avenue we have is to embark on
constitution amendment. If we don’t get it on that level, I don’t think it is
going to work,” he said.
According to the Speaker, for councils to have financial
autonomy, they must maintain an account with the Accountant-General of the
Federation where monies due them will be paid directly, thereby eliminating
joint accounts.
He said the constitution has to be very clear on how council
executives are composed to avoid situations where states unilaterally suspend a
council chairman or councilors.
Dogara said if councils become efficient, the best hands
would want to contest elections as chairmen and councilors.
He said when financial autonomy and independence is
achieved, councils would still, to some extent, be under states’ jurisdiction
regarding healthcare, basic education, policing, among others.
On the House’s role, he said: “The aspect we will be looking
at is to ensure that all local government councils in Nigeria are
democratically run, not run by caretaker councils appointed by the state
executive. That is one big area that we are looking at.
“The second area is democratically elected council
legislators, not caretaker committees, so that they will be saddled with the
responsibility of passing laws that will give the council the powers to effect
all latitudes given to them under the 4th schedule of the 1999 constitution. We
talked about financial autonomy, which is the biggest.
”We want to guarantee that by ensuring that councils
submit their respective account numbers to the federal government where money
meant for them are paid directly without any intervening authority or third
party all the chain so that council authorities and citizens that live in those
local governments will know that this is what is coming. The money is published
every month so they know.
”State legislators need some form of autonomy and we
want to give them that. That will definitely be in the proposal that will be
going out to them to vote on.”
On why SIECs should be abolished, he said: “State
independent electoral commissions have never worked and will never work. So our
best bet is to make sure that they are eliminated.
“From the proposal that will come out from us, you will
discover that the state independent electoral commission will be removed from
the provisions of the constitution but it is left for the state assemblies, two
thirds of them, to agree with us.
“Once we do that, we will transfer the powers of organising
elections in the third tier of government to INEC which appears to be doing a
better job than the state electoral commission, and that is by popular consensus
anyway.
“So, that is what we want to do in regards to the councils
and the motivation is to ensure that we have a sustained basis at the local
level where developmental activities can take place to stem the tide of
rural-urban migration which has become a big problem in this country.
“When we do that, we will improve on the quality of the pool
of professionals that will serve at the local level. That therefore means that
it will escalate developmental activities across the nation. That is what we are
doing.”
Dogara recalled that in the seventh assembly, effort was
made during the constitution amendment to vest council with financial autonomy.
He said 20 state assemblies endorsed it, but because two-thirds of the states were
needed, the amendment could not scale through as it fell short by four states.
·
Source: The Nation
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