A former Minister of Information and Communications, Dasuki Salihu Nakande, has said that governors are swearing in elected local government councils’ chairmen “is unconstitutional.”
According to him, the local governments as an independent tie of the government are not supposed to be under the control of a governor.
Nakande stated this while featuring on a Unity FM Jos local radio programme, adding that since the LGCs were given full autonomy, “governors have no business in their activities.”
“Governors swearing in LGCs chairmen is an aberration of constitutional provisions. Why can’t a magistrate judge swear them in, because the judiciary is also an independent arm of the government,” he said.
Nakande noted that “corruption has continued to thrive because governors are not held accountable.”
“Local government chairmen are mere cashiers to governors. If they are allowed to function properly, we will hold them accountable.”
He said for so many states in the country, “there isn’t real governance in place, no good roads, no industries, salaries are not being paid; and pensions are being abandoned to their fates.”
The former minister commended the National Assembly for abolishing the method of using delegates as well as the adoption of electronic transmission of election results.
“The best ever that can happen to our electoral system is that you must do away with this issue of delegates. I am a victim of delegates’ method; I know what it takes to have to get to delegates and canvassed for their votes.”
He noted that though the zoning formula being practised by political parties “is a convention, an unwritten law that must be allowed to stay.”
“It brings about inclusion; I think it should even be entrenched in such a way that it goes down to the states, to the local governments and even within the local governments it should be in the various wards.”
