No fewer than 20 states of the federation have rejected autonomy for local governments in the fourth amendment of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
In the report of the committee on the review of the 1999 Constitution submitted by Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, yesterday, 20 states voted against local government autonomy while 16 states voted in support. Twenty-four states were needed for local governments to be free from control of state governments.
The 20 states that voted against are Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Enugu, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kwara, Lagos, Ondo, Osun, Rivers, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara, while the states that gave the yes votes are Adamawa, Anambra, Abia, Bauchi, Benue, Edo, Gonbe, Imo, Kebbi, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Oyo, Plateau and Sokoto.
The proposed amendments, which was rejected indicated that “a local government council not democratically elected shall not be recognized by all authorities and persons and shall not be entitled to any revenue allocation from the Federation Account or the state government nor exercise any function exercisable by a local government council under this constitution or any law for the time being in force; and shall stand dissolved at the expiration of a period of four years, commencing from the date the members of the council were sworn in.”
The National Assembly has also empowered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deregister political parties, while provision were made for independent candidates in elections. The extant electoral law stipulates that political parties must sponsor candidates for elections.
Section 177 has been altered, by inserting a new paragraph “(d) he is a member of a political party and is sponsored by that party or he is an independent candidate.”
The National Assembly also separates the office of the Attorney General of the Federation from the Justice Minister. In a similar vein, the office of the Accountant General of the Federation has been separated from the office of the Accountant General of the Federal Government.
The Accountant General of the Federation shall be appointed by the president on the recommendation of National Economic Council, subject to confirmation by the Senate, and shall be responsible for the administration and disbursement of allocations from the Federation Account to the tiers of government.
In an amendment of Section 225, by inserting Section 225A, INEC can deregister political parties if there is a breach of any of the requirements for registration and if such political party fails to win presidential, governorship of at least one state, chairmanship of at least one local government/area council or a seat in the national or state assembly election.
All the 36 states of the federation approved the amendment.
No comments:
Post a Comment