A former member of House of Representative that represented Ikwuano/Umuahia federal constituency, Chief Sam Onuigbo says total Local government autonomy will only be achieved if the local governments are separated from state agencies such as civil service commission, while elections for their chairmen and councilors are handled by the Independent Electoral Commission to ensure transparency.
Chief Onuigbo who stated this during an interview with Newsmen on Friday in Abuja, noted that local governments are recongnised by the Constitution as the third tier of government and expressed regrets that their functionality has been largely undermined by state governors who are practically in charge of their administration.
According to him, allowing state independent electoral commissions to handle local government elections exposes the system to manipulation by governors whose parties win virtually all available chairmanship and councillorship seats.
“It is the party at the Government House that wins all the elections; so that is a problem. So I say that we have to take the out (state independent electoral commissions) or let INEC conduct the election so that we can have some balance… to have some competitive spirit’’, he said
Chief Onuigbo who is a member of the North East Development Commission further frowned at the practice whereby state governors run a joint state-local government joint account, adding that it did not augur well for judicious use of local governments’ resources.
The former National Assembly member is of the opinion that the review of the 1999 Constitution will be incomplete without true devolution of powers to local governments, revealing that previously efforts had been made to review different segments of the constitution considered to require an amendment.
While calling for total devolution of power as was the case of movement of electricity from the exclusive list to the concurrent list by the 9th National Assembly, he advised that in the current review, they have to take a critical look at the local government system.
The climate change activist said making local government truly independent would make more resources available at their disposal to carry out their functions such as mobilising grassroots participations in policies as actions such as climate change.
“When we talk about emissions they are coming out from communities where local governments are supposed to be in charge. You are also talking about nature-based solutions. Therefore, it is important that we allow local governments to play their roles’’, he said.
He pointed out that it was to encourage local government participation in efforts to mitigate climate change that the Chairman of Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) was made a member of National Council on Climate Change.
“We need awareness that is why in structuring the Act (Climate Change Act) we gave different roles to every stakeholder. We want to carry everybody along’’, Onuigbo said.
