Supreme Court ruling on LGs’ tenure

The Supreme Court of Nigeria’s recent ruling that voided the powers of state governors to dissolve elected local government councils before the end of their tenure offers significant promise for Nigeria’s democracy. A five-man panel of Supreme Court judges led by Justice Olabode Rhodes Vivour, ruling in an appeal which was filed by the Ekiti […]

The Supreme Court of Nigeria’s recent ruling that voided the powers of state governors to dissolve elected local government councils before the end of their tenure offers significant promise for Nigeria’s democracy. A five-man panel of Supreme Court judges led by Justice Olabode Rhodes Vivour, ruling in an appeal which was filed by the Ekiti State government, faulted a law passed by that state’s House of Assembly. The then state governor Dr Kayode Fayemi had relied on that law in 2010 to dissolve local governments in the state. The dissolution occurred when the statutory tenure of the elected councils had not expired.

In its ruling, the apex court said the law Fayemi relied on violated section 7(1) of the Constitution from which the State House of Assembly itself derived powers to enact the local government law. Justice Centus Nweze said in the lead judgement, “The Ekiti State House of Assembly has powers to make laws for Ekiti State. However the snag here is that in enacting section 23(b) of the Ekiti State Local Government Amendment) Law 2001 which empowered the first appellant to abridge the tenure of office of the respondents, it overreached itself. Section 23(b) (supra) is violative of and in conflict with section 7(1) of the Constitution (supra). Hence it is bound to suffer the fate of all laws which are in conflict with section 1(3) thereof.”

The judge also said Section 7(1) of the Constitution seeks to guarantee the system of local government by democratically elected local government councils and conferred “sacrosanctity on the election of such officials whose electoral mandates derived from the will of the people freely exercised through the democratic process.” “The elected councils are therefore clothed in constitutional force.”

 

The import of this judgment is accentuated by the unfortunate state of affairs in the country whereby out of the 774 local government councils in the country, only a small portion at present are democratically elected. The rest are run by non-elected Caretaker Committees appointed by the respective state governors. Even when there are elected local government councils, as soon as incoming newly elected governors resume in office, their first self-appointed assignment is to emasculate the local government leadership by dissolving same and appointing caretaker committees. Apart from Fayemi (currently the Minister of Mines], other governors who dissolved duly elected local government councils they met in office at resumption include Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina State and Mr Nyesom Wike of Rivers State. 

 

The case for Anambra State stands out in infamy as there was no local government election in the state between 1999 and 2013. Successive governors had been running the state much like Spanish Conquistadores, without the benefit of harnessing the input of the local population.   This self-serving practice by the state governors has denied the country the benefits of sustainable, viable democratic culture at the critical grass roots level where the bulk of the citizenry reside. It has also compromised the basis for the much desired bottoms-up approach to development, which is possible only when the ownership of the processes of governance is domesticated in the people.

Incidentally, this state of affairs has benefitted from the complicity of the Federal Government which has since 1999 been breaching section 7 of the Constitution by disbursing funds on a monthly basis to unelected local governments even as they are not recognised by the Constitution. While the Supreme Court judgement stands commendable, the dividends from its new relief of guaranteed tenure for the Local Government councils may not be optimised until the federal government also consolidates the threshold of rectitude by upholding the constitutional provision of restricting funding to only elected Local government councils. This measure will hopefully discourage state governments from refusing to hold local government elections and violating the constitutional guarantee of local government by democratic means.