As the current Federal Government led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had set the machinery in motion to review the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, a human rights activist, Comrade Adeniyi Alimi Sulaiman, has called on the State Governors in Nigeria, particularly the current members of the State House of Assemblies, to make a decision to allow the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to be conducting the Local Government elections across the country.
Comrade Sulaiman made this suggestion amidst the decisions of the Constitutional Review Committee of the joint members of the National Assembly to receive opinions and suggestions from Nigerian people on the exercise in order to have workable Constitution for the current Nigeria democracy, saying that allowing the nation’s electoral body to conduct the Local Government elections would put stop to the charade called election by the conduct of the States Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs).
The rights activist and Executive Chairman, Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice (CHRSJ), insisted that to have even development and uniformity among the third tiers of government, INEC should be saddled with the responsibility of conducting Local Government elections as the electoral body would bring sanity and efficiency into the Local Government electoral system.
Sulaiman, who made this known on Sunday, called on the Forum of Speakers of the State House of Assemblies to ensure two – third of supporting the Bill for the inclusion in the proposed new Amended Constitution.
He gave the reason that the Local Government election conducted by State electoral body used to be one sided by making the process to become the affairs of the party ruling by not allowing genuine electoral contest in the local government system of the country.
According to him; ” The Local Government system that is supposed to serve as training ground for political leaders and administrators, had been relegated to background because of selfish political interest and nothing to write home about to the extent that the opposing political actors had lost hope in the local government electoral system”.
“The only saving grace for the Local Government system and to save the system from the bridge of collapsing in the country, is to allow the nation’s electoral body to be saddled with the responsibility of conducting the Local Government election henceforth. If this Bill could be supported by two-third of the State House of Assemblies, it is going to deepen the nation’s current democractic experiment at the grassroots level of the country.”
He suggested that the timing of conducting the local government election should be made to be different from that of general election in order to bring even development, sanity and uniformity in the local government system in the land.
Sulaiman, who doubles as Convener, Save Lagos Group (SLG) therefore, reiterated the call to the members of the State House of Assemblies to support the Bill being earlier passed by the two Chambers of the National Assembly to return the responsibility of conducting Local Government election to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).