Enugu State Local Govt. Election: A Governor That Can't Keep To His Words, Cannot Be Trusted
By
CNPP - ENUGU

There is this doctrine usually in democratic government the 'subsidiarity'. It’s says that every problem and issue should be solved in the possible lowest level of the
government. If you try to Solve local problems on national or state level you have a big chance you will mistreat the problem, and it would make much harder to solve a simple problem. If you try to manually to lead everything from the centre you will create a monster government which will be slow, corrupt and ineffective.Every decision would need to go through too many levels on the bureaucracy system.

As a result, In 1974, the military regime of General Olusegun Obasanjo embarked on ‘Local Government Reform. The reform revolutionised local government administration in the country and accorded it an official recognition as the third tier of government. The reform sought to address the role, the content of the system of local government, which hitherto, merely served as an appendage and extension of the existing local government.

Ideally, in a well constituted local government administration, the state governments should have no business fixing those pothole infested roads in your neighbourhoods, providing pipe-borne water that is now herculean task in Enugu or providing desks for primary schools. That should be the primary responsibility of the local councils but this is the result when local government administration is placed under one person's armpit to the benefit of political cronies as means of saying thank you or people who will do a hatchet job for them.

No doubt, effective local government is a crucial component of any strategy to improve security, stability and counter radicalization, but what do we have here in Nigeria, the other two tiers of government have successfully weakened and emasculated the local government through the years especially here in Enugu State.


It is regrettable that many state governments have not been allowing their State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs) to conduct elections as at when due but rather settle for‘caretaker committees'. And where elections have been conducted, the party in control of a state apparatus has been known to have cleared the polls.

It has also come to our notice that the phrase ‘local government autonomy’ has become a buzz phrase for politicians looking for how to win the next election, but nothing has fundamentally been done to make the local government truly autonomous especially pulling them away from the grips of state governors who now see the third tiers of government as an extension of another arm of their government.

It is on this note, that Coalition of Nigeria Political Parties, Enugu state [CNPP] is calling for attitudinal change from the state governors and we are saying that we condemn in totality any move to install caretaker committees in Enugu State local governments and therefore calling on the Enugu state governor to expediate action and do the needful by conducting not just local government election, but it must be credible, fair & transparent.

Therefore, we are asking the governor to quickly reverse the idea of local government Caretaker Committee or face mass protest in the state. We will resist any attempt to impose caretaker committee on the people of Enugu because it is anti people, inhuman
and barbaric for anyone to do so. As a result, we keep it here while closely monitoring the direction and body language of this failed government.

Signed
State Chairman
Chief Adonis Igwe JP