The speed is simply unprecedented. This rampage must be accomplished. And in an uncanny record time too.
The pillage is on local government. It’s their newfound cash cow. To milk it dry. First, it has to be brought down to its wobbling knees. Then feast on it.
The Federal Government is no longer contended with what it has. Greed, covetousness being displayed at competing measure. The likes of Oliver Twist and Shylock.
For all evil intentions and purposes. Our government is on the prowl. Ravaging, rampaging. And destroying anything that stands in its crooked, cursed way.
In its self-fulfilment drive. It left good governance untouched. It is busy grabbing everything. And running with all things.
Operators of this government are deadly in all ramifications. They have insatiable thirst for power. They loathe devolution of powers like a pandemic.
They are hunted and haunted. Theirs is acquisition of more powers they do not merit. These powers do not belong to them in the first instance.
President Bola Tinubu’s focus on LG can’t be comprehended. In any sense possible. Stranger than fiction. And bizarre.
The same LG he once stoutly defended. The same he is deriding and rubbishing. He practically led the onslaught for the survival of local government. And its vibrancy.
Remember? He looked former President Olusegun Obasanjo straight in the face. And damned the dire consequences. That was when he held sway in Lagos State, 1999 to 2007.
While his colleague-governors cringed. He refused to cave in. He was the last man standing. He instantly became a star of this wobbling dispensation then.
He brought a novel idea into local government administration. It was like never before. He defiantly created Local Council Development Administration (LCDAs).
Obasanjo was shocked to the marrow. He hit back for the wrong reason. He withheld allocations to Lagos LGs. Tinubu stubbornly stood his ground.
He approached the law court. He didn’t fight Obasanjo to a standstill. There was no stalemate. He won even at the Supreme Court.
That gave him the weird audacity. That he single-handedly “built Lagos.” We will continue to ask aloud and eternally: What then did Awo, Johnson, Jakande, et al build? This sage and icons all came before Tinubu.
That’s just a useful digression. Now. Tinubu is in the position Obasanjo occupied. And he is manipulating LG worse than Obasanjo. Tinubu is undoing what he once did perfectly well. He is simply dismantling what remains his legacy.
Why this sudden U-turn? Why the haste? What has actually changed? What informed that change? Time? Perhaps!
He departed from his noble past. He opted to initiate a different, awkward battle. Still on the same local government. That was so dare, close to his heart.
He’s up in arms against his former constituency and constituents. Level has changed. And he has to align.
He goofed. Governors’ role has not changed. They remain the constitutional custodians of local government.
Take it or hate it. That’s what the law says. It has not been altered. It has not been amended.
Donald Duke is Tinubu’s ex-colleague in Cross River State. He testified as much. Consummate, solid and outstanding. He didn’t hide anything. Neither did he suppress anything. Have a delicious bite:
“I’ve my reservations about the Supreme Court judgment. For the judgment to be effective, we need a constitutional amendment.
“Is the local government a federating unit? We are going to operate true federalism. The LG should be guided by the laws, not by the Federal Government because it is the creation of the state.
“The Constitution talks about the responsibilities of the federal and state governments. It does not talk about the responsibilities of the LG.
“We are not saying that there should be no LG. Of course, there will be LG, but it will be guided by the state. The problem they are trying to avoid is to give full autonomy to the states.
“We also know that the Federal Government is not even more responsible than the states. Don’t think you are better than the other one.
“If you want LG autonomy and at the same time you say the governor is the Chief Executive and in charge of the security of the state, there cannot be that kind of autonomy. “They have to be responsible to the superior organ. That organ is the state House of Assembly. Whatever the government is set to achieve it must be tidied.
“When the then President Obasanjo withheld the resources of Lagos State, it was based on this because Tinubu Lagos State Governor had created several development areas not recognised by the constitution.
“He (Tinubu) went to court. But he is doing the same thing now. The constitution even said that the local government elections are carried out by the state electoral commission. In other words, the local government is still within the purview of the state. Those conflicts have to be dealt with.”
Tinubu is unperturbed. He remained adamant. He rather elected to go haywire. He shut his ears and hearing to words of wisdom. He’s wreaking havoc on true federalism.
Inflicting injuries on the very constitution he vowed to defend. How leaders change with times! All weather rulers of our type. Their kind can’t survive saner clime. Never, ever.
He secured his own type of “autonomy” for the LG. Not through constitutional amendment, but from the court.
He and his cohorts forgot so easily. Court doesn’t make laws. It interprets. That’s is its primary and statutory business.
Perhaps, someone woke him from his deep slumber. He hurriedly approached “his” Senate. Just to complete what he started in Supreme Court.
And he is dastardly about it. The reason he’s spoiling for the worst. The intentional desperation is quite obvious. He can’t feign it. He wants to start conducting elections into LG offices.
Nigeria is one huge laboratory of the absurd. All manner of oddities are performed as experiments. Tinubu’s National Independent Local Government Electoral Commission (NILGEC) is laughable. He wants to plant INEC in the LG. To do the dirty job it knows how best to perfect.
Tinubu is desperate to run local governments from his Abuja base. He has moved past what he accused Obasanjo of perpetrating. He’s closing in on being an empror.
This is how he plans it. And to subterraneously bring it to pass. He hastily sent an half-baked bill to the Senate.
He is seeking an “independent electoral body with the responsibility of conducting local government council elections.” Excerpts from the obnoxious bill:
“NILGEC is hereby established as an autonomous body mandated to organise, oversee, and conduct elections for the offices of local government chairman and councillors across all states.
“NILGEC shall consist of a chairperson and six commissioners, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate and shall serve for a term of five years, renewable once.
“Local government elections shall be conducted every four years.
“Upon the establishment of NILGEC, all powers and functions related to the conduct of local government elections previously vested in any other body or authority shall be transferred to NILGEC.”
Trust the rubber stamp lawmakers. In a twinkle of an eye. The bill effortlessly scaled all odds. And with the speed of light. It couldn’t have been otherwise, anyway. Any how, Tinubu will have his way. It’s given
Sad! Tinubu is usurping the powers of state governors unchecked, unrestrained. What he would not tolerate from Obasanjo. He expects others to swallow; hook, line and sinker. Worst still. He is reckless in his approach.
This is not the restructuring we daily clamour for. Certainly, this is not it. This is intentional deconstruction, dismantling. It couldn’t have been our take.
It can’t suit our collective aspiration. We are not cut for this. We didn’t bargain for it. It’s self-destruction. It will only take us further backwards. And sinks us deeper into extinction and decimation.
This is fulfilling personal, inordinate ambition. It’s never our dream. It is not the way we want to be governed and led. We are terrified. Help, ruiners are on the prowl, plundering, pillaging.
What they cannot build. They seek to destroy. They are strengthening the unitary structure we detest.
You may want to mark it. By the time Tinubu is done with us on the fragile strength of his ambiguous, chaotic reforms. We will ever remain crisis-ridden at the grassroots.
Pray, we won’t witness such. Not even in the farthest future.
This great worry is giving us nightmare. We can spot a fearful replica of the almighty INEC at the LG level. It’s a clone of some comical sort. All NILGEC appointments to be made by the President? No input from governors?
Just the same hideous manner President constitutes INEC. At his whims and caprices. Why not deploy INEC to do the hatchet job? That way, we conserve resources. And enormous waste plugged.
Let’s borrow ourselves some useful brain. We need to work out a genuine and sincere balance in the constitution of the incoming NILGEC.
Politicians should stay out of this. We have had enough of their shenanigans in INEC. Let honest technocrats come into the scene this time around. It’s worth trying.
If we are determined and resolute. NILGEC could be a pilot project to make us. It may restructure and reform our electoral system.
We can use it as a positive turn around. That’s if we’re willing. I’m convinced we’re able and capable. It’s quite doable. It’s the willingness that’s hugely in acute short supply.
Even that too is surmountable. Isn’t it?