Lagos LGs: Gathering storm over planned tenure elongation
OLAJIDE OMOJOLOMOJU April 23, 2013 No Comments »
Lagos LGs: Gathering storm over planned tenure elongation
Like a bolt out of the blue, what started as a rumour became topical – the backdoor attempt by the Lagos State House of Assembly through an obnoxious bill, allegedly propped up by the executive to elongate the tenure of present elected councillors and chairmen of the 20 local government councils and 37 local council development areas (LCDAs). OLAJIDE OMOJOLOMOJU takes a look at the controversies trailing the draft bill and the issues surrounding the new move by the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN)-led government in Lagos.
Nothing brought the agitation for the autonomy for the local government system to the fore more than the recent plan by the Lagos State House of Assembly, at the prompt of the executive to extend the tenure of the present chairmen of the 20 local government councils and 37 local council development areas till about 2016 or 2017.
There has been massive agitation across the length and breadth of the country for autonomy to the local government system, which many regard as the third tier of government in Nigeria’s warped federal system of government.
The plan to extend the tenure of councillors and chairmen of local government councils in Lagos State was said to have been perfected and a bill to that effect already before the state House of Assembly and is said to be awaiting passage into law by the 40-member legislature, who are all members of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
But political analysts in the state have described the plan as illegal and shifting of the goal posts midway into a game of football. This is more so as this attempt at tenure elongation was coming at a time when the current tenure of elected council officials is just midway.
The draft bill, alleged to have been put together by the members of the state local government areas and LCDAs in collaboration with the state governor, Babatunde Fashola, and addressed to the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, suggest that there is a collective plot to prolong the tenure of the executive and legislature of the councils.
A clause in the bill, which indicated that affected elected local government officials can retain the offices and serve fresh term of office with effect from when the bill eventually becomes law stated: “Notwithstanding the provisions of Sections 12(1) and 27(3), councillors and chairmen of local government and local council development areas that were sworn in prior to the commencement of this law may hold office for the term prescribed by this Law.”
This section simply infers that the over 300 elected councillors and 57 chairmen automatically get an extension of tenure, a development which enables them to remain in power longer than necessary.
Nigeria operates a federal system of government which recognises the local council system, which is run by elected chairman and councillors, where the chairman is the chief executive officer of the local council. The existing legislation, tagged Lagos Local Government Law 2001 stipulates a three-year tenure for elected local council officials.
The bill sought two major amendments to local council administration in the Centre of Excellence. The first was the review of section 27 of the Lagos State Local Government Law 2001, with the aim of elongating the tenure of office of the current elected local government officials from to four years while the second was to limit to two terms of eight years the number of terms elected officials at the council can serve, in line with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) for the tenure of president and governors
However, the new draft bill, if it eventually becomes law would give a new threeyear term of office to the present elected officials of the local government in Lagos, whose tenure was expected to lapse in October 2014, just a few months to the 2015 general elections.
Since the news broke about this underground move to extend the tenure of elected local council officials, the polity has been awash with reactions, from different quarters condemning the act.
To the opposition parties in Lagos State, especially the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), it was a ploy by the ruling ACN to escape imminent defeat come 2014 should local council elections be held.
The PDP believes that the popularity rating of the ACN and the Fashola-led administration in the state has reached an all-time low and it is only a matter of time before the party is sent packing by Lagosians, for the PDP to take over the reins of governance in the state.
Reacting to the bill through its Publicity Secretary, Taofeek Gani, the PDP in Lagos described the plan as “undemocratic, legislative rascality and satanic.” It said: “The infamous bill, if passed into law, is capable of provoking monumental reactions from Lagosians which may affect the assumed peace and tranquillity in the Centre of Excellence.”
While cautioning the state House of Assembly to avoid being used as agent provocateur to truncate democracy at the level of local government administration, the PDP wondered why the ACN-led government in Lagos State was so desperate “to hold onto the local government administration until after the 2015 general elections.” The party said: “In fact, this move further confirms the rumours that the National Leader of the ACN actually surreptitiously sponsored the ‘third term agenda.’
As a matter of fact and considering the centralised leadership of the ACN, we are also convinced that the former Lagos State governor collaborated with the incumbent to sponsor the infamous bill.”
Also reacting to the draft bill, Lagos lawyer and human rights activist, Femi Falana (SAN), reminded the Assembly members that attempts to elongate the tenure of former President Olusegun Obasanjo was kicked against by their predecessors, they are morally “stopped” from elongating the tenure of elected chairmen and councillors in Lagos State by the manipulation of the law, adding that to elongate the tenure of the present chairmen and councillors of the local government councils in Lagos was simply an immorality and an illegality that cannot pass the test of time.
Falana said: “The proposal is illegal in every material particular. It has to be withdrawn or struck down in the overall interests of the people of Lagos State who are due to participate in fresh local government election in October 2013.
“As the chairmen and councillors were elected in October 2010 for a fixed period of three years their term of office will expire in October 2013 by effluxion of time. Therefore, an amendment of the Lagos State Local Government Law, 2001 under which they were elected cannot extend their tenure from three to six years under any disguise.
Since the proposed amendment takes effect if and when it is passed into law it cannot retrospectively extinguish vested rights and obligations of the outgoing chairmen and councillors. In other words, the proposed amendment to the Lagos State Local Government Law cannot take a retrospective effect and thereby elongate the tenure of the chairmen and councillors from three to six years.”
The legal luminary said that there was no doubt that the constitution, by virtue of Section 7 empowers each state House of Assembly to legislate on the administration of local government councils, but in exercising such powers as granted by the constitution, it is wrong and illegal for the House to enact laws “with retrospective effect in a way that accrued rights of the people are abrogated.”
Falana added that should the bill be passed into law, the constitutional rights of Lagosians to partake in periodic elections of not more than three years to elect chairmen and councillors of councils cannot be sacrificed by the Lagos State House of Assembly.
He added: “However, if the Local Government Law is amended to provide for four-year tenure for chairmen and councillors, the amendment cannot tenure to the benefit of the current chairmen and councillors whose term of office is three years certain.”
While drawing the attention of the Lagos legislature to the “case of Attorney- General of Abia State and 35 others versus the Attorney-General of the Federation (2001) 17 WRN 1 wherein the Supreme Court held that even though the chairmen and councillors of local government councils throughout the country were elected under Decree no 38 of 1998, which had been repealed, their three-year tenure could not be extended or prolonged by any law enacted by the National Assembly,” Falana said that following the same pronouncement of the Supreme Court, “the three-year tenure of chairmen and councillors fixed by the Lagos State Local Government Law, 2001 cannot be elongated by any amendment whatsoever and howsoever.”
He added: “Having regard to the penchant of the political class in Nigeria to copy bad examples, the Lagos House of Assembly should not be allowed to set a dangerous precedent by engaging in the illegal extension of elected chairmen and councillors in Lagos State.
If the tenure of the local government chairmen and councillors in Lagos State is extended through an anomalous amendment of the Local Government Law, all other public officers in Nigeria who were elected via the 2011 general elections may also want to take advantage of the proposed amendment of the constitution to elongate their tenure to 2019 without contesting any election in 2015.”
Falana therefore enjoined the Lagos lawmakers to jettison the proposed elongation of the tenure of chairmen and councillors of local government councils in Lagos State forthwith, threatening that should the bill be passed into law and assented to Governor Fashola, he would not hesitate to challenge the legal validity of such law in court “without any further notice.”
In like manner, the Lagos Collectives, a group of stakeholders’ in the state also condemned in strong terms the proposed bill and attempt by the state government to perpetuate illegality. The group in a statement signed by its chairman, Professor Tejumade Akitoye- Rhodes, frowned at what he called an “obscene reward for the incumbent chairmen and councillors.”
Akitoye-Rhodes likened the proposed law to the third term agenda, which was shot down by concerned citizens in the recent past.
The statement read in part: “The proposed law which seeks to extend the tenure of the chairmen and councillors in Lagos State is outrageous, illegal, primitive and undemocratic.
“It is a crass attempt by the ACN government to deny the people of Lagos State their due and appropriate representation. Even changing a law must not only go through a rational and logical process of the constitution, it cannot be seen to be an obscene reward for the present holders of office.
“The apparent absurdity of making a proposed legislation to the deliberate advantage of incumbent elected office holders betrays the ACN government in Lagos State as hypocritical and unprogressive.
The very people who shouted themselves hoarse over Obasanjo’s third term bid are proving themselves as equally desperate and unworthy of the people’s trust. “The Lagos Collectives vigorously rejects this aberration and we are determined to ensure that it will not stand.”
In its reaction to the barrage of criticisms trailing the draft bill, which the House has been accused of treating, the deputy speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Taiwo Kolawole, said that there was no plan by the House to extend the tenure of local government chairmen. Kolawole denied that there was such a bill before the House, but declared that what was before the House for consideration was a bill to consolidate all the existing laws on local government administration in the state.
But he conceded, however, that there was a clause in the bill the House was considering which borders on tenure extension of elected officials at the local government, disclosing that the bill has just passed the second reading.
While expressing his disappointment at what he called attempts by some highly placed individuals in the state to pre-empt the outcome of the House deliberation, Kolawole, specifically reacting to Falana’s threat and umbrage, said that Falana is free to go to court, as such action was “what makes democracy interesting.”
His words: “Mr. Falana is not supposed to warn us. Lawmaking is not his duty. He is a social crusader and rights activist. There’s nothing new in challenging our laws. We have not categorically said we are extending the tenure of council chairmen in the state. He cannot read the mind of the House. So, he is wrong, even though I do not want to join issues with anyone on this. “Falana has the ample opportunity to go to court and challenge that. It is still a lawmaking process, but he must not pre-empt us.
That is wrong and unfortunate for our democracy.” The Deputy Speaker added that the state House of Assembly is made up of 40 members, whose contributions, opinions and inputs count on every issue raised and discussed on the floor of the House and therefore, should those clamouring for tenure extension be in the majority, “there is nothing anybody can do about it.”
But as if exposing the deputy speaker’s double speak on the matter, the state Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General, Adeola Ipaye, justified the proposal. He said that the move was brought on stream as a result of barrage of complaints of poor performance of the council chairmen in the state, arguing that elected officials at the local government level have also hinged their constraints in making appreciable impact not only in infrastructural renewal or manpower development on the number of years the law stipulates for their office.
But beyond the denial of and justification for the bill, a school of thought is of the opinion that the proposed amendment was to guard against any form of conflict, disaffection, protest, internal crisis and defection that may arise from the conduct of primaries for councillorship and chairmanship of the 20 local government councils and 37 LCDAs should the council polls be held in 2014 and thereby jeopardise the chances of the ACN, which last Thursday fused into the All Progressives Congress (APC). To this school of thought, there is no justification for such bill at this point in time, because, it is merely changing the rules of the game midway into the game.
But to the opposition, this latest gamut is nothing but a ploy by the ruling ACN in Lagos to avoid defeat, which it said is staring the ruling party in the face in the 2015 elections. To major opponents of the proposed bill, including the Ikeja branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), it is highly immoral and illegal that the fixed tenure of elected officials, elected by the electorate, would be elongated by just 40 lawmakers who belong to the ruling party.
Just as no one was in doubt of the powers of the Lagos State government to seek to review any law when and if necessary, it was the considered opinion of stakeholders and political analysts that such review must be for the promotion of the common good, but this present attempt is not only an act of bad faith, but a “brazen attempt to infringe on the rights of the people of Lagos.” Also displeasing was the plan to make the bill have a retroactive effect when passed into law.
Stakeholders believe that making the law retroactive is “clearly immoral and antithetical to the promotion of good governance and the rule of law,” and as such dangerous to the nation’s nascent democracy. Even more befuddling was the fact that the ruling ACN in Lagos State, which seems to be the proponent of this contentious bill, played very important and strategic role in the truncation of a similar bill proposed by President Goodluck Jonathan extending the tenure of the president and governors to one single term of seven years.
The administration of President Jonathan had in 2011 proposed a bill to be included in the constitution during the ongoing amendment process, which prescribed a seven-year single tenure for the president and state governors, a proposal which the ACN became the arrowhead for its opposition. With the barrage of opposition to this bill, which according to the Deputy Speaker has passed its second reading, will the Lagos State House of Assembly go ahead and pass it into law?
If the House does pass the bill into law, will the state governor, Fashola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), assent to such “obnoxious” law? If the two scenarios play out, what steps will the opponents of the bill take and what steps will the people of Lagos, whose rights are being abridged by the executive and legislature take? Will Falana follow through with his threat and seek redress in the law courts? So many questions begging for answer.
But one thing is sure; the Centre of Excellence will not remain the same should the attempt to elongate the tenure of elected local government officials scale through at the end of the day. Whichever way the pendulum swings, this new bill will be a reference point now and in the near future.
http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/lagos-lgs-gathering-storm-over-planned-tenure-elongation/
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