Marked by visible lopsidedness, the arrhythmic local council polls instigated by the July 11 Supreme Court ruling negate all known democratic norms. They fuel the fear that the country’s democracy is tenuous at all levels.
The Supreme Court ruling gives financial autonomy to local governments, terminates the toxic era of illegal caretaker committees illegally constituted by governors, and mandates the choice of LG officials through elections. It ends governors’ arbitrary sacking of democratically elected LG chairmen and councillors.
The centre has announced that only LGs with duly elected officials will be granted allocations in compliance with the ruling. This necessitated a rush by states to conduct LG elections.
Unfortunately, the 15 council elections conducted so far reek of electoral heist. This has undermined the essence of LG autonomy ordered by the SC.
The LG elections conducted since October were riddled with credibility and transparency issues. In some states, the opposition boycotted the exercise. The votes were swept by the ruling parties or parties that the ruling parties preferred.
The elections were characterised by the incumbency factor, absence or late arrival of election materials, non-voting, vote-buying, opposition repression, rejection of results, explosions, and gunshot violence.
Of the 15 states that conducted the election, the ruling party won all the contested seats in 13. The All Progressives Congress won in 10; the Peoples Democratic Party, two; the All Progressives Grand Alliance, one.
The states are Ebonyi, Bauchi, Kebbi, Kwara, Imo, Enugu, Sokoto, Anambra, Benue, Kaduna, Kogi, Ogun, Nasarawa. In Akwa Ibom,the PDP won 30 out of 31 LGs. In Rivers, the Action Peoples Party, in which the ruling PDP has a vested interest, swept 22 of the 23 chairmanship positions. Osun and Kastina have postponed their elections to February 2025.
The opposition parties have massively rejected the results. In Nasarawa, the opposition complained of the absence of voting materials and that results were concocted where elections did not hold.
In Ogun State, where 19 parties participated, opposition parties rejected the results. They complained about the late arrival of materials, vote-buying and “voting with business cards” instead of voter cards.
Explosions and gunshots marred the elections in Rivers, where Governor Siminalayi Fubara is at loggerheads with his predecessor and Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike.
Indeed, the elections were a sham. The ruling parties and governors, in their crass desperation to control local councils for political gains, have stripped the people of their right to elect their leaders and undermined the essence of democracy.
The politicians are the problems with democracy. From 1999 to date, LG elections have been captured by the parties in power in the states.
Mocking democracy, the governors introduced caretaker committees in place of elections. The governors and the Houses of Assembly members must be ashamed of the sham LG elections have become. They must collaborate to salvage politics and development at the grassroots.
Democracy is weak because politics at the grassroots is in tatters. The people must own democracy while the CSOs must lead the pack to break the state conspiracy against the people.
In the best democracies, an election is a competitive exercise among parties. Even in elections involving parties that have done well, oppositions still give them a fight.
The solution to the country’s LG debacle is true and fiscal federalism. In a polity where LGs rely mainly on allocations that can barely pay workers’ salaries, the variant of federalism that puts LGs under states for effective administration and management should be preferred as LG responsibilities go beyond salary payment to include providing services in the critical sectors such as education, healthcare, roads, and water.
LGs must be self-sustaining and embark on projects they can sustain.
