The 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, as amended,
makes unambiguous provision for a democratically elected local
government administration.
The contraption called Local Government
Caretaker or Transition committee as practiced in some states is alien
to the constitution and therefore illegal and unconstitutional and the
apex court of the land, the Supreme Court, has so declared.
The argument by
the governor that local government election cannot hold in the state
because the state government doesn't have money to fund it is not only
untenable, fallacious but dishonest and baseless.
In the first place,
what happen to the local government allocations from the federation
account that the state government has been receiving?.
Such fallacious
argument betrays the deliberate decision of the state government not to
conduct election into the local government councils in the state.Surely,
funding is not the problem.
Would it be right if the federal government comes up and say that state governorship and legislature election will not hold in 2019 as a result of the economic recession in the country and at the end of the tenure of the governors and the state lawmakers the Presidency would appoint caretaker committees to run the affairs of the respective states?.
Would Governor Udom and other governors in his ilk have the moral right to complain or challenge such decision by the federal government?
Local government administration as the closest to the people has been seriously bastardised by the state government.
It's not functioning at all.Some local government secretariats have been outgrown by weeds due to lack of funds to take care of them.Local government administrators and staff hardly go to their offices because nothing is happening there.
In the circumstances, we are inclined to believe our government house source who informed us that it's the local government funds that the government is using to run the government while funds accruing to the state government from the federation account are used to service the inexplicable, bad debts bequeathed to the present government by his predecessor and godfather and that they are afraid of being floored by the APC.Nothing can be truer than this.
Ebonyi State that has conducted local government election is not richer than our state.Lack of funds as argued by the governor is only an excuse and not the reason local government election is not held in the state.
The governor must activate the AKISIEC to conduct local government election before the end of this year.They have looted enough from the local government funds.
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