If there is a debate as to which date between June 12 and July 11 is more appropriate to be called “Democracy Day” in Nigeria, one would be mistaken to think that those proposing the latter would not have valid points to marshal out against the former. Although democracy is widely assumed to have been first given practical meaning in Nigeria on June 12, 1993 through relative free-will of Nigerians, what followed shortly thereafter was its death. The struggle for the resurrection of that particular democracy also led to the death of many Nigerians, including the legendary Moshood Abiola, who carried the day. The pronouncement by former President Muhammadu Buhari that made June 12 Democracy Day since 2019 has only been attempting to give justice to injustice done to the date by then military President Ibrahim Babangida. As it is with almost every other death, the dead have not been resurrected by the apparent appeasement.
Dead is one wound that cannot be healed in this world, even by truth told after the deed of death had already happened.
July 11 of 2024 marks another supreme restoration and revitalization of democracy in Nigeria by the highest law court in the land. In terms of inviolability of conducting periodic elections as at when due at the federal and state levels, it is a fact that since May 29, 1999 democracy has been running unimpeded in Nigeria. It is also a fact that three years after 1999 democracy has been strangled and deoxygenated at the 774 but six local government councils in the country. The exempted six are in the Federal Capital Territory, in which the Independent National Electoral Commission has constitutional power to conduct their elections.
Highlighting the notion that the bane of Nigeria’s democracy has not only revolved around the military guys in their Khaki uniform, the dearth of democratic institutions at the grassroots has been caused by those wearing flowing gowns and glowing with rapacious aggrandisement in cosy and gaudy offices of governors across the 36 states in the country. Those abetting them are the state lawmakers who have been exhibiting examples of how to function as mere stamps in the hands of the executives.
By creating state independent electoral commissions, SIECs, the intention of the framers of the 1999 Constitution was inspired by the spirit of federalism, which places great emphasis on devolution of power among component units of a federation. The constitutional power mandating state legislative houses to make laws for the local government was also informed by the dictate of federalism.
From experience in the last 25 years, evidence abound that those in authority at the state level have surpassed those at the federal level in abusing public offices. Since 1999 INEC has made constant progress, at least by conducting elections under its purview as at when due and keeps improving the standard of electoral processes in the country. But SIECs have been sieging democracy at the grassroots.
Swayed by influence and inducement of their respective state governors, the state legislatures have been cashing in on a section of the constitution, which empowers them to make laws within the state, to perpetrate undemocratic government at the local level. When the tenures of elected local governments are not terminated before their lawful expiration date, the SIECs, which are at their own governor’s beck and call, often fail to conduct elections at appropriate time. With purported backing by state-made laws, which contravenes Section 1 of the Constitution, contraptions, either in the name of “caretaker committees” or “transition committees” have usually been set up by the governors to run affairs of the councils.
Even when the governors in their own volition and convenience mandate SIECs to conduct elections, the political space is always grossly narrowed to accommodate only the ruling party in the states. With internal democracy seen as anathema, only those selected by power brokers in the states are affirmed elected. Acting as colonial masters to the local authorities, the act of governors sitting atop council funds had been complacently seen as norms and not anomalies that they are.
At a certain era in Akwa Ibom, the 31 local government areas in the state were shared among key persons in the then governor’s extended family. They did not only decide who were elected or appointed into council offices, they were on first-line charge in the sharing of booties handed by the then “supra-generous” governor to the councils.
The stifling of functionality of local government, through deprivation of democracy and denials of their funds, is like a contagious disease. From 1999 to date, not less than 150 persons have, at different times, held forte at the offices of the governors across the 36 states. It is hard to count up to two persons among present and past governors who had been immune from the ailment of usurping functions of local governments.
Notwithstanding currently being trended as a poster boy of good governance in Nigeria, it can be verified by even a primary school pupil that, while in Anambra’s governor’s office, Peter Obi was also seriously affected by the disease of holding local governments to siege. It is on the issue of local government that another aspect of exceptionalism worth emulating was exhibited by Nasir El Rufai, the former governor of Kaduna.
Juxtaposing then Governor Bola Tinubu and now President Bola Tinubu, one does not need to go to the political science laboratory before seeing the picture of incongruity. With his governorship days in Lagos, between 1999 and 2007, as the subject under examination, no credible examiner would give Tinubu a clean bill of health with regard to the common disease affecting Nigerian governors. It was his unconstitutional creation of local government areas, suppression of democracy at the councils and their financial autonomy in Lagos, that contributed to the running battle he had with the then President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The battle to liberate local governments from the imperial grips of the governors had been fought fervently in different dimensions by the administrations of Obasanjo and Buhari but with no lasting success. The victory recorded by the Tinubu administration, which has legal potency of longevity, is a resounding testimony that the instrument of law remains the best option for righting wrongs and, in this case, furthering the frontiers of our democracy and good governance.
However, the ugly face of incompatibility in the political leadership of Tinubu fraught out from the fact that Lateef Fagbemi, who initiated the court processes that led to the milestone judgement, works under the watch of the same Tinubu, who did not allow local councils in Lagos to breathe the air of democracy and autonomy. Could the difference between the Tinubu in Alausa and the Tinubu in Aso Rock be traced to the difference between two senior advocates of Nigeria – former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, a professor of Law, who manned the office of the Attorney General of Lagos under Tinubu, and Fagbemi, a staunch litigation lawyer, who is currently superintending the office of the Attorney General of the Federation?
Also Read:
- Police constable recruitment: Successful candidates get date to resume training
- House Public Accounts Committee recovers additional $14m from oil companies
- Eid al-Fitri: Obasa felicitates Muslims, urges support, prayers for Tinubu
- Aisha Achimugu declared wanted by EFCC speaks, defends business practice
- Police rescue two kidnap victims, hunt for alleged abductors
It is in view of how succeeding governors have been mishandling local governments, among other misdemeanours, that the fears of many Nigerians, including this writer, can be understood on the quest for state police. It is also feared that with SIECs still existing, the governors could device new means to circumvent the July 11 supreme court decision. Those worries underscore the pertinence and urgency of all progressive hands to be on deck in fighting parliamentary filibustering from baring its fangs against the needfulness of scrapping SIECs.
At the moment whether July 11 would be given a celebrity mark in the calendar or not, by breathing oxygen of unhindered autonomy into the nostrils of local governments and outlawing undemocratic leadership, the judiciary has done its bit. It is now left for the executives and the legislature, at the state level, to allow democracy to run its course at the local government level.
. Ekanem sent this article from Lagos through nsikak4media@gmail.com.
Follow The Eagle Online Channel on WhatsApp
