By Samuel Aruwan
Kaduna Salvation Movement (KASMO) yesterday condemned the bill passed by House of Assembly that elongated the tenures of local government chairmen and councillors from two to three years, respectively.
The movement said passage of the Kaduna state Local Government Councils Administration Law 2012 (amendment bill) is a setback to democratic practice and a gross violation of the 1990 Constitution.
In a statement by its spokesman, Barrister Mohammed Musa Soba, it said: “It amounts to legislative treachery and despicable political perfidy for the Kaduna state House of Assembly to contemplate an amendment to the local government administration law just to create the enabling environment for the executive arm of the government to appoint illegal interim management committees for the local government councils after the expiration of the tenure of the incumbent executives in December 2014.
“This amounts to a clear violation of the constitution and contempt for the various judicial pronouncements on the illegality of interim management committees for local government councils. We particularly condemn the attitude of opposition law makers in the Kaduna state House of Assembly who should have opposed the illegality by the PDP lawmakers that are always desperate to support every undemocratic action proposed by the executive arm of government that has remained stagnant and confused.”
The new three-year tenure, Soba said, was a decoy to facilitate the passage of the Interim Management Committee clause. The same Kaduna state House of Assembly that rightly ruled out IMCs in 2012 turned deaf ears when it passed the two year tenure proposal into law against reasonable counseling and advice.
“We, therefore, condemn the re-introduction of the IMC clause into our local government administration law and call for the immediate reversal to the 2012 law that outlawed Interim management committees for the local government councils in compliance with Section 7 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
