..says judgement apt, timely
By Mike Adeyemi
A legal practioner, Barr. Infeayi Emmanuel Onwa has commended the apex court in land on the recent judgement granting autonomy to 774 Local Governments in the country.
The lawyer stated this recently while answering questions from our reporter in his Ilorin office.
According to him, ‘the quest for the independence of Local Governments from the hands of State Governments is long overdue, hence the Supreme Court rullings is a welcome development, apt and timely.’
He added that Local Government who is supposed to be the third tier of the government has over the years become a puppet to the governors.
“Local Government supposed to be more valued than the state government because it is closer to the grassroots. So the Supreme Court verdict granting autonomy to local governments is one of the best judgement that we have recorded this year.
“I want to appreciate the initiator which is the Attorney General of Federation, Lateef Fagbemi(SAN) for the boldness to take that step. But another thing is the mode of conducting elections into those local governments because if we leave it in the hands of the state governments, is still the same thing, ” the eloquent lawyer said.
Onwa further charge the legislative arms of government to come up with an act which would saddle the conduct of elections into the local governments seats in the hands of the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC), as against the state’s electoral umpires.
“It is important that the conduct of local government elections become the responsibility of INEC because it is impossible to get a free and fair election under the current arrangement.
“The current system encourages massive rigging because state’s electoral umpires are under the control of the state governments which belong to a political party.
“As we’ve seen over the years, parties which control states will stop at nothing to tailor the results in their favour. You will discover that all council elections conducted in state are won by the party in power,the opposition is left with nothing.
“As local authorities have been given autonomy, it will be easy for the people to hold them accountable. This will in turn, bring development,” the legal Luminary stressed.
He however said that the idea of states conducting their local government elections is not bad in its entirety, affirming they have made a mess of it, hence calling for intervention to stop the apparent arbitrary display of power by the state governments.