Mixed reactions greet proposed LG Independent Electoral Commission creation bill

By Omoniyi Salaudeen

Power devolution to the grassroots is slowly, but steadily evolving, courtesy of the recent judgment of the Supreme Court that set the process in motion by granting financial autonomy to local government administration in the country.

 

Complementary to the apex court ruling, the National Assembly has taken a step further by proposing a bill seeking to establish Local Government Independent Electoral Commission to take charge of the conduct of council elections.

This is coming barely a week after the legal tussle between the states and Federal Government over the disagreement about the status of the local councils as a tier of government had been laid to rest.

Until then, the State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC) had been roundly criticized for irregularities that have always characterized the electoral process, giving undue advantage to the ruling parties at the expense of the opposition.

Already, a bill entitled: “Local Government Independent Electoral Commission (Establishment) Bill, 2024 (SB. 531)” sponsored by the Chairman, Committee on Finance, Senator Sani Musa, has scaled the first reading in the Senate.

When eventually passed into law, the new electoral body will be saddled with the responsibility of conducting elections for the 774 local government areas in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

The bill is aimed at empowering the electoral umpire to operate independently, free from external influence and interference.

To achieve the objective, the Commission shall have its budget approved by the National Assembly to ensure financial independence. According to the bill, the proposed body shall consist of a chairperson and six commissioners, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

The chairperson and commissioners shall serve for a term of five years, which is renewable once.

The bill said: “NILGEC shall define and enforce penalties for electoral offences, including, but not limited to voter fraud, ballot stuffing, and electoral violence.

”It is expected to come into effect upon its passage by the National Assembly and assented to by the President.”

This is to ensure that the electoral process at the council level is credible, transparent and competitive. One of the strong arguments against the present state electoral commission is the overbearing power of the governors who merely handpick candidates and impose them on the electorate.

This has not only accounted for the low quality of personnel at the grassroots, but also made democratically elected officials unduly subservient to the governors.

With the proposed bill, therefore, many stakeholders are of the view that a change of the status quo will not only improve the quality of the electoral process, but also attract high quality manpower that will be needed to run the administration of local government in the country.

Over the years, there has always been concern over the quality of personnel at the council level.

Poor recruitment or employment process, lack of appraisal system, inadequate funding and training have been identified as some of the causes of poor quality service delivery that have kept the grassroots underdeveloped in Nigeria. These have been largely blamed on the existing structure which regarded local government as an appendage of the states.

For this reason, the Supreme Court ruling which granted financial autonomy to local government is seen to be incomplete without a holistic reform of the leadership selection process that will allow the emergence of democratically elected officials through credible and transparent elections.

By so doing, it will make chairmen and councilors to be more accountable to the people at the grassroots as they take on more responsibilities under the new regime of financial autonomy. The consensus, therefore, is for the evolving power devolution to embrace fiscal and political autonomy to enable local councils to perform their onerous roles of providing needed services at the grassroots to improve the quality of life of the citizenry.

Renowned leader of thought in the North, Alhaji Yakasai Tanko, sharing his thoughts with Sunday Sun, declared that the best solution to the old narrative is centralization of the conduct of local government elections.

He said: “All along, my position is that the INEC should be the sole authority for the conduct of any election whether national, state or local government in Nigeria. Over the years, the state electoral commissions have created an opportunity for state governors to manipulate the process to ensure that results of elections are in favour of the party in power either by hook or crook. This is killing the quality of democracy in the country. The basis of democracy is grassroots. Therefore, any democracy that does not address the problem of grassroots is not a democracy.

“We must make sure that elections conducted by state and local government are centralized. It will help to do away with manipulation. Today, we have two main political parties. Each of these political parties would like the electoral body to manipulate the outcome of elections in their controlled states.  Therefore, if the state electoral commission is allowed to conduct local government, there will be no opportunity to get the right quality of people to run council affairs. But where election is conducted by one centralized body, the possibility of manipulating the process to favour a particular party will be reduced to the barest minimum.

“There is a general tendency for people to manipulate. That selfishness is there in America, in Germany, in Israel, and many other advanced democracies, but it is not to the extent that electoral officers will be determining the outcome of elections in favour of candidates they like as it is happening in Nigeria.

“Whatever anybody may have about the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Yakubu Mahmood, he has tried his best. No federal election has generated as much controversy as state elections. As long as we have two parties controlling the system, each will try to manipulate the process to favour its candidates. Therefore, we may never get free and fair election in Nigeria unless we get a single electoral commission that is vested with the power to conduct state and local government elections.

“Having a centralized electoral body will improve the quality of democracy in the country because fair and free election is the life-wire of democracy. Where there is no free and fair election, there is no democracy.”

In the same vein, Chief Ckekwas Okorie, speaking with Sunday Sun in a telephone interview, opined that the new electoral body would set local governments free from the stronghold of the governors who treat them as an appendage of the state.

His words: “Some people have spoken about INEC conducting local government elections; I oppose it because we are talking about decentralization. And so, we cannot begin to centralize things like local government elections and take them to an electoral body that is already overwhelmed.

“The state electoral commissions presently constituted are just departments of the governor’s office. They are not in any way independent. So, any electoral reform that will set up a state electoral commission in which state governors will have no influence in releasing their funds or the appointment of officers to be in the new independent body will be a welcome development. That way, they will be able to do their job without much influence.

“Again, the result of local government elections must be transmitted from polling units directly to state portal the same way we are proposing for the INEC. That is the only way the governors will not be a stumbling block to the deepening of democracy at that lowest level of governance.

“The recruitment of chairmen and councillors is key to determining the quality of personnel that will work at the local government level. When we get to the point where people’s votes count, democratically elected officials will now know that they are only accountable to the electorate who voted them in. When people begin to vote for candidates of their choice, then the recruitment process will begin to yield positive result in terms of accountability.

“It is only when a local government chairman knows that the council he is presiding is autonomous and independent of overbearing influence of state executives, they will be able to recruit quality personnel that will run the affairs of local councils.

“Local councils need to deliver on their mandate. And the starting point of delivering that mandate is the quality of personnel they have at the grassroots.”

However, Senator Gbenga Obadara, in his perspective, dismissed the proposed state independent local government electoral commission as a waste of resources.

“There is nothing new in the proposed bill; it is just a waste of money. INEC is capable of doing the job of conducting local government elections. The best is to give the responsibility to INEC before we begin to waste money on another electoral body and then recruiting people.

“Already, INEC has everything it takes to conduct council elections. This is the same body that conducts national elections. Why can’t we allow the commission to conduct election into the 774 local governments in the country? If it is about the fair of manipulation, are we saying that the same argument cannot be levelled against the proposed body? Are the people to manage the new electoral body not human beings? We will only be wasting more money, not reinventing the wheel,” he argued.