“Injustice and lawlessness is the greatest terror a government can ever enforce on its own people.” —Mehmet Murat ildan
By Omoniyi Salaudeen
An intriguing, but befuddling legal tussle is about unraveling in Benue State over the purported dissolution of elected local government chairmen and subsequent appointment of caretaker committee chairmen by Governor Hyacinth Alia. The latest trending news about the scenario that is playing out there is as confusing as it is complex. The summary of it all is an effective characterization of the seismic interplay of executive recklessness and legislative rascality. To make it worse, all contending parties in the looming crisis are hiding under the guise of euphemisms to give conflicting interpretations of the processes that led to the dissolution of the constitutionally constituted authorities at the council level. It presents an interesting power game. But why the members of the state house of assembly which is saddled with supervisory roles would allow themselves to be used as pawns in the hands of powers that be is one big puzzle that needs to be resolved very quickly to save the situation from further degeneration.
By the subsisting judgment of the Supreme Court, no governor has the right to truncate the tenure of elected local government chairmen and councilors under whatever guide. But in this case, some state actors are trying to be wise by half. There is a widespread story in the media that the state assembly, acting under Sections 7 and 8 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, which gives it powers to legislate over the third tier of government, investigated, indicted and sacked the 23 elected chairmen who were found to have perpetrated monumental fraud in their councils in active connivance with various councilors.
And then, Governor Alia in a smart move to avoid a vacuum quickly appointed caretaker committee chairmen to take charge of the affairs of the council administration.
There must be a peculiar case of widespread endemic corruption in Benue State if all the 23 chairmen and councilors were found culpable of financial misconduct in one swoop.
And to that extent, it is no longer within the purview of the state assembly to conduct an impartial investigation into this matter. Even though the constitution permits the state legislature to perform oversight functions on local governments, the law does not envisage this kind of arbitrariness. As far as the Nigerian constitution is concerned, it is the exclusive preserve of the anti-graft agencies like the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and other related offences (ICPC) to conduct such investigation into any form of gross misconduct by public office holders professionally and impartially.
But it is unbecoming of state lawmakers to surrender themselves as willing tools in the hands of the governors to do their hatchet job. If anything less, the motive and the speed with which they conducted the so-called investigation into the affairs of the local government and the suspension order slammed on the elected chairmen is suspect.
It is even more intriguing under the present situation where all the chairmen belong to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). As a partisan party in the matter, the lawmakers who are largely members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) lack good moral standing to pass judgment and institute punishment at the same time without any recourse to the law court. It’s like being a judge in their own case. And by so doing, they acted ultra vires by sacking the chairmen on the allegation of financial misappropriation of councils’ funds. They went beyond the call of duty far and above the powers conferred on them.
To be sure, Section 7 (1) of the constitution provides for only elected chairmen to run the administration of local councils. It reads: “The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this Constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the government of every state shall, subject to Section 8 of this Constitution, ensure their existence under a Law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition.”
This speaks to the imperative of autonomy of local government, which the majority of state assemblies and their governors have vehemently opposed. It has become a norm for new governors to dissolve council administration each time an opposition party assumes control of a state and immediately replace them with caretaker committees. More often than not, their first assignment is to dissolve the elected council executives.
What goes around, they say, comes around. When a proposal for council autonomy was presented by the 9th National Assembly to the state assemblies for consideration, the majority of state legislatures, including Benue State, voted against it.
Now, the same PDP that then formed the majority in the Benue State Assembly is being haunted by the indiscretions of its lawmakers. There is a need for a revisit of that legislation in the interest of the survival of democracy as participatory governance has a direct link with the grassroots.
There is a legion of reasons the governors’ forum, an amorphous body alien to the constitution, forms an opposition against local government autonomy. One of them is the unwholesome practice of diversion of funds belonging to local the government as was recently the case in Ogun State where a former chairman of Ijebu East Local Government, Wale Adedayo, accused Governor Dapo Abiodun of starving the council administration of funds.
Without looking into the merit of the allegation, the state assembly curiously claimed to have investigated the affairs of the local government and subsequently suspended him for blowing the alarm whistle.
It is, indeed, a sublime irony that the same constitution that guarantees the existence of democratically elected authorities to administer the council areas also permits state/local government joint accounts through which the governors perpetrate all forms of financial infractions.
For the avoidance of doubt, Section 162 – (6) of the Constitution states that “Each state is required to maintain a special account to be called “State Joint Local Government Account” into which shall be paid all allocations to the Local Government Council of the State from the Federation Account and from the Government of the State. In the same manner, each state is required under Section 162(7) of the constitution to pay to Local Government Councils in its area of jurisdiction such proportion of its total revenue on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the National Assembly.” Despite the clear provision, the usual practice is for the governors to allocate funds to them based on their whims and caprices. They also used that as an opportunity to interfere with the democratic process in their states.
There is already an existing precedent by the Supreme Court against such an arbitrary use of power, but it has been routinely ignored by the governors. For the benefit of hindsight, the apex court had in 2021 ruled against former Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina State and his counterpart in Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, in a matter relating to the unlawful dissolution of council chairmen.
For the former, Justice Adamu Jauro ruled that Masari acted ultra vires by sacking the chairmen on an allegation of financial misappropriation of funds and ordered the Katsina State government to pay the appellants all their entitlements from the date of their illegal dissolution to the date they were supposed to lawfully vacate office.
In the case of Oyo State, Justice Ejembi Eko, in the lead judgment, said that Makinde acted “invidiously and in contemptuous disregard of a High Court judgment” when he dissolved the democratically elected chairmen and councilors and appointed caretaker committees to replace them.
He also noted that the three-year tenure of the sacked chairmen and councillors had expired, but he proceeded to hold that they deserved to be compensated for their tenure that was “illegally truncated” on May 29, 2019.
Therefore, technically, the Senate may be said to be on the right course by passing the resolution, urging President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to withhold the funds belonging to local governments in states where there are no elected chairmen.
The resolution followed the motion raised by the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Abba Moro, seeking to cut off statutory allocation to the local government areas whose chief executives and councilors are not elected.
To this extent, it will take the proverbial camel to pass through the hole of a need for Governor Alia to win the fight he has embarked upon by the unlawful dissolution of the elected chairmen in the 23 local government council areas in Benue State. What the state assembly has purportedly done is to rock the boat without sounding the waters. Nigerians are watching.