Free, fair, and credible election in Nigeria is a major challenge at all levels. It is sad to note that the conduct of elections at the local government level by the State Independent Electoral Commissions is the worst in the country. The ongoing ugly trend is that any state governed by APC, PDP, APGA, LP or NNPP usually wins the LG elections by 100%y. This is our sad reality!
For a very long time our governors have been exploiting some lacunae in the 1999 constitution by appointing caretaker committees instead of conducting elections for local government chairmen and councilors. In states where elections are held, they are often kangaroo exercises.
The Supreme Court has now interpreted Section 162 of the constitution mandating direct monthly revenue allocation to only elected officials of local government. Prior to this judgement, majority of our local governments from across the states of the federation were governed by caretaker committees. Bu the states are now in a race to replace caretaker committees with elected officials in order to avoid the possibility of withholding allocations to their local governments. It baffles me to note that local government elections are still the usual kangaroo exercises.
It is unheard of and unthinkable, even in the so-called advanced democracies, to have a scenario where all contested seats in an election are won by a single political party as it does happen in our local government elections. Election is the bedrock of democracy as well as the primary source of legitimacy; it affords citizens the opportunity to have a say on who governs them.
It is quite unfortunate that we now often celebrate electoral fraud at the grassroots level in the name of local government elections. This cannot take us to the promised land! For as long as elections are not credible at the local government level the much talked about financial autonomy granted to the third tier of government through the 11th July, 2024 Supreme Court judgement will only mean little or nothing to local government administration. State governors will continue to impose their stooges as local government chairmen and councillors via our usual kangaroo elections in order to control local government funds .
Therefore, all hands must be on deck towards credible elections at all levels in our dear country as a necessary ingredient for good governance; credible elections often make leaders accountable and responsible. We must not settle for anything less than credible elections as the most important tool for achieving good governance.
It is apt to state that from the 2011 elections under Prof. Attahiru Jega to date INEC has witnessed significant improvements in the conduct of its elections owing to the adoption of technology. In the 2015 general elections, card-reader technology was exploited by politicians for lack of legal backing and in the 2023 general elections, INEC Result Viewing (IREV) technology was also exploited for same reason.
The best way to improve our elections at all levels is to embrace modern technology wholeheartedly. This will, certainly, minimse human manipulations in our electoral process. The use of technology must be made compulsory by both INEC and State Independent Electoral commissions. For us to get it right, we also need electoral offences commission with a special court for trial of electoral offenders. There must be severe punishments for electoral offenders in our dear country to serve as a deterrent to would be offenders.
For the local government administration in Nigeria to improve, we must critically re-examine the following sections of our constitution: Section 162 (6), Section 7 sub-section 6 (b), Section 197 (1), The 5th Schedule of the 1999 constitution, among others.
May God bless Nigeria!
Nurudeen Dauda, Kaduna, Kaduna state.
nurudeendauda24@yahoo.com