As the President Bola Tinubu-led Federal Government had set in motion the 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 and the the State Houses of Assembly, to allow the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conduct the Local Government election henceforth.
Sulaiman made this remark following the decisionsl of the Constitutional Review Committee of the joint members of the National Assembly to receive opinions and suggestions from the Nigerian people in order to have workable Constitution.
He said allowing the nation’s electoral body to conduct the local government election would stop the charade experienced whenever the elections were conducted by 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 in the country, the responsibility of conducting Local Government election should rest on INEC.
According to him, this would bring sanity and efficiency into the local government electoral system.
Sulaiman who said this in a statement on Sunday, called on the Forum of Speakers of the state assemblies to ensure two – third of their members supported the bill for inclusion in the amended Constitution.
He argued that the local government election conducted by states electoral bodies were usually one-sided as the processes were usually hijacked by the ruling party in the state and devoid of genuine electoral contest.
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 collapsing 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 democratic experiment at the grassroot level of the country.”
