NULGE: State Electoral Commission should Conduct LGA Elections

Workers under the aegis of National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has stressed the need to confer constitutional power on Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct Local Government elections in the bid to save democracy at the grassroot.
Ibrahim Khaleel, NULGE President who stated this at the end of the National Executive Council (NEC) held in Abuja, applauded National Assembly’s resolution in favour of Local Government autonomy.
Khaleel who expressed concern that the State Houses of Assembly may scuttle the Local Government autonomy, urged the federal legislature to revisit the recommendation which seek to scrap State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC).
“We want the National Assembly to look at the possibility of revisiting the issue of deleting SIEC from the constitution because going by the provisions of Aberdeen convention which the United Nations provision on the administration of local government, participatory local government is Article number one, and for you to strengthen the participation democratically at local government level, SIEC must be scrapped so that INEC will be saddled with the responsibility of organizing election as and when due.
“It is only when we have this arrangement that democracy at the local government level will be strengthened.
“Our position is strengthened by the Bauchi State Governor who publicly admitted on national television that he had not conducted elections since he assumed office in 2015 due to paucity of funds, adding that it will only make sense for State Government to hand-off local government elections, so that INEC will be saddled with the responsibility to do so,” the NULGE President said.
Hr also observed that the ongoing constitutional amendment should stipulate the tenure of elected local government Chairmen, in order to guarantee Local Governments’ autonomy.
“We are canvassing for four year tenure for local governments, but the issue has already been taken care of by the recent position of the National Assembly which proposed three years. We believe that if at the end of the day, it sailed through with a two-third of State Assemblies, it would have put an end to the issue of tenure for elected local government officials.”
Khaleel also showered encomium on the Senate and House of Representatives for scrapping of joint State and Local Government account, which seeks to “grant local government administrators the constitutional power to manage their own accounts as against the existing policy in which governors take absolute control of local government allocation.
“The bill on democratic existence of funding and tenure of local government councils which prohibits constitution of caretaker leadership for local government area. Another fundamental victory if endorsed by state assemblies against the fact that many Governors continue to exploit caretaker leadership of local councils to trample on the independence of local government areas.
“The third bill on scrapping of State Independent Electoral Commission from the constitution was defeated narrowly in the House of Representatives with eleven votes short of the required 240 votes.
“It is our hope that in the course of reconciliation between the two chambers, this may be rectified. The “bold step taken by the 8th Assembly has rekindled our hope that this time around, our struggle and message of local government autonomy through advocacy have taken deep roots not only in the imagination of the Nigerian masses, but even more so in the agenda and scheme of key democratic institutions.
“This shows that the logic of autonomy for local government has matured; an idea whose time has come. We are however by no means carried with the belief that the job has been done. We were at this juncture when. The sixth and seventh Assembly voted to support local government autonomy, but could not muster the required two third from the state Assemblies,” he said.

Source: http://www.businessdayonline.com/nulge-state-electoral-commission-conduct-lga-elections/