The quote is a reflection of a British development economist in one of his works titled “the bottom billionaire: why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it”. My digestion of this book necessitated my thought and conclusion on one of the major reasons why hard-core development eludes local communities and of course, development still a mirage in many part of Nigeria’s urban settlements. If there is any electioneering exercise that is supposed to be the fairest, untainted and uninfluenced representation of the people’s will, then, nothing can be far from saying that it should be local government elections. As a matter of fact, researches have shown that 95 percent of local government elections held in Nigeria can best be regarded as an exercises that were put up merely to satisfy the constitutional requirement of having elected chairmen, thus, qualifying the whole exercise as a mere formality or charade, and at best could be termed as a process premeditated on the farce of the ruling party in the state takes it all. This undeniable fact and other downgrading phenomena is perhaps what brews an age-long or continued argument as regard the status of local government, whether, in its factual sense, local government can be regarded as a tier of government. In a political parlance, a tier of any government is inherently expected to be independent, at least to some reasonable levels, from undue external influence from other tiers of government. This does not portend that it should exist or function in isolation, rather, paradoxically in complementary subordination to the state government.
As a creation of the constitution, section 7(1) of Nigeria’s 1999 constitution guarantees a system of local government by democratically elected councils. Going by the ipsi sima of the provision of the constitution, the provision clearly states that the system of local government by democratically elected local government council is under this constitution guaranteed, and accordingly, the government of every state shall, subject to section 8 of this constitution, ensure their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance of such councils. The theme of this piece is not focused on whether local government is ipso facto or ipso jure a government or centred on analyzing the propriety or otherwise of using appointed officers in running the governmental affairs of local governments instead of elected officers, rather it is factual exposition and analysis of the pseudo-democratic dispositions of all political actors in Nigeria, in particular the state governor masquerading as democrats.
The pertinent question that needs be asked firstly, is that how could a government which came into power by a small percentage of margin votes above the simple majority, on which basis the INEC declared him a winner, would in a twinkling of an eye, perhaps few years, claim victory in all the local governments of such state? This is even more complicated, where in the obvious reality of his underperformance, and botched electoral promises, where it is very glaring in all ramifications that his performance, since the inception of his administration is nothing to write home. Put poignantly, a democratically elected governor that secured victory with a slim simple majority; that is one-third of votes cast in two-third of local governments in his state, would conduct an election into the offices of the chairmen in same state, under same political party that brought him into power and such party would garner all or almost all the votes in that elections! I could sense the weird thought racking the brain of every reader of this piece, that in some possibilities, electorates have the proclivity to consider and vote candidates and not political party. But then, could it be reasonably justified that the whole candidates, subsequently fielded by the ruling party have grassroots acceptance from the majority of the electorates in the state? Or at best, it could be said that they all rode through the political popularity, rigging tactics of the ruling party in the state, to the extent that even in areas where it is crystal clear that the opposition holds sway or has an overwhelming majority?
Among other compounding questions, one may further probe, inquisitively, is why are Nigerian states’ governors, particularly, always fake to be democrats? Can a true democrat be someone who does not allow the will of the majority to prevail? Charity undeniably begins at home, so goes an age-long saying. This sequence to the fact that, can a person who is undemocratic in running the affairs within his political party and state feign to be democratic when he finds himself at the helms of affairs at the national politics? Being a democrat, I strongly believe, should be from within and not from without. The simple reality of the status of local government elections in Nigeria is that it is just a jamboree exercise that is put up as farce to the constitutional requirement of electing local government chairmen through a democratic process of electioneering.
For the purpose of precision, I will at this injunction cite some states as examples of where local government elections were held, just like every other elections, as a charade and business as usual of the winner takes it all. In the local government elections held on July 22, 2017 in all the 20 local governments and the 37 Local Council Development Areas in Lagos state, the ruling party in the state, APC, held sway with an overwhelming votes, sweeping all the local governments and local council’s elections. Whilst in the governorship elections held on April 11, 2015, it had the APC winning in 15 local governments out of the 20 LGs in the state. In delta state also, the gubernatorial contest between Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan of the people Democratic Party (PDP) and Chief Great Ogboru of the Democratic People’s party (DPP) in 2011, had the former win 14 Local governments while the latter won in 11 local governments. In a twist of event, in the local government elections held on Saturday, October 2014, the PDP who managed to scale through the constitutional simple majority cleared 23 out of the 25 LG elections held on October 25, 2014 in the state. On the same level, the September 28, 2016 gubernatorial election held in Edo had an overwhelming victory for the APC gubernatorial candidate, Godwin Obaseki who won in 13 out of the 18 local government in Edo state. However, despite the fact that the margins led by the victorious APC in some LGs in that guber elections were slim, and the lackluster performance of governor Obaseki for almost 18 months in power, the march 3, 2018 LGs elections had the APC held sway as APC was declared winners in all the 18 local government in the state. The local government elections held on April, 2019 had APC candidates declared winners in all the 14 local government and councillorship seats in Zamfara state. This was an election conducted under the tenure of former governor AbdulAziz Yari. I am doubly sure that had the elections to the chairmanship and councillorship seats be held under Governor Bello Mattawalle of the PDP, who was later declared winner by judicial fate, the whole seats would have been garnered by the ruling PDP. I have gone to cite these sizeable examples, with many more still handy as convincing nuggets to the focal point of this piece, this is done all in a bid to drive home my point that local government election in Nigeria a sham, charade, and nothing but exercise by political actors or state generalissimos, who are far from being regarded as democrats but masquerading as ones.
To further substantiate this, series of research have shown that, what necessitated the parochial greed for the retention of elected local government chairmen met in offices by newly elected governors is simply because of the greedy loyalty to either the political party through which they came into power or loyalty to their predecessors or both, but certainly, not for the interest of the state. Therefore, their hands are tied by the politics of remote censoring, at the detriment of the majority in the state. In a sane clime that is studded with democratically political players, democratic will is expressed at every stage of electioneering. Here, we refer to a political environment, where people’s will is not suppressed, muscled or buried with a view to satisfy the cynical interests of few set of political godfathers, who are masquerading as democrats. My confusion lies in the fact that, how can a state governor who won in just a figure half the total number of the local governments in a state and in spite of wide condemnation of his government for non-payment of salary and other manifest breach of campaign promises, still triumphs in all the local governments in the state? Even after, his first tenure, and when in his second term re-election, he managed to win with less than the number of votes he claimed during his first coming, he still conduct a kangaroo elections and have all the local governments in the state won by his massively criticized party? One wonders what the magic wand could be! It in the light of this political abracadabra that I submit that the search for a true democrats among the Nigerian governors is definitely a pipe dream!
Let me drive home my point by expressing that, Nigerian political office holders, particularly the governors, are incorrigible betrayers of a system that brought them into power. They are unrepentant political transgressors, who indulge in infraction of core paraphernalia that form the tenet of democracy. Aside their ferocious greed for power which suppresses the electioneering system that inculcates the will of the majority of the electorates to prevail, they are unapologetic electoral heists who see no wrong in milking their respective state’s treasury and diverting into their personal accounts, money meant for the development of the local communities that constitute their states. One is therefore less startled to come to term with the fact that up till this very moment, more than 65 percent of the entire 774 local governments in Nigeria are yet to be manned by democratically elected chairmen, years after they had come into power. This, the governors indulge in with pride in defiance of the Supreme Court’s decision on this matter. They would rather impose adjunct political protégé who are lorded over the people, as selected council bosses, so as to stand as agents of siphoning.
This is happening in defiance to the Supreme Court’s judgments in cases that touch on the removal of elected local government chairmen met by newly elected governors. Then, frustratingly you ask, are they really democrats who want the people to be fairly and ably represented at all levels? In whose interest is their cynical selecting process? Their acts, in whose interest? For ill or public good-the pseudo democrats.
RILWAN BALOGUN
Balogun, a legal practitioner, wrote in from Lagos, via: [email protected]
