Nigerian Laws, Local Governments, And The 36 Emperors We Call Governors (1) -By Sesugh Akume

Nigeria is a messed up country in part, if not chiefly because we have very bad laws. Ever heard the cliché ‘The policies are good, the problem is the implementation’? Wrong! Many, if not most policies are terrible, and so is the implement.

We have bad laws such that in Nigeria someone does something wrong but it’s legal, why? Because the law says so. When I ran for office I saw so many obnoxious laws I couldn’t believe it.
There are principally 2 ways of changing (bad) laws, it’s either by the legislature amending them, which is a rather long route with other steps to make them valid like concurrence by the president or governor, and gazetting. The second is litigation which can also be long, a torturous path, not to mention expensive.

The local government system in my opinion is the most important, the closest to the people, with the greatest impact on us all. However, especially since ’99 we’ve had virtually no LG system in Nigeria. The 36 emperors we call governors have hijacked and asphyxiated that autonomous tier of government, and for the most part, legally so.

For instance, the LG law in Benue empowers the governor to determine if he’s ready to have local government elections or not! It says if the elections can’t hold then he can appoint caretaker/transition administrations with the endorsement of the House. This means as long as a person is the governor, elections may NEVER hold for the LG system if s/he so chooses. And it’s legal!

The law says the state electoral commission is mandated to hold LG elections whenever it chooses. So the tenure of the incumbents may be elapsing but there’s no guarantee if or when elections would hold to replace them. Or for them have another term. And as usual, it’s very legal. With such an abused LG system, we can have nothing but this we have in place presently. Backwardness. Uncertainty. The rule of man. Demigod governors.

Democracy is built on the rule of law, not the arbitrary rule of man. Its tenets have it that everyone is subject to laws which by the way supersede every individual whoever they are, not a whimsical system ran by the discretion of man.

Imagine that a president can decide if elections may or may not hold in Nigeria. Or has the powers to appoint state governors, or sack them at will. The chaos you can imagine, is the rape 774 local government areas have been agonising under in the last 20 years.

Earlier today my attorneys wrote the Benue State House of Assembly to amend those obnoxious sections of the LG, electoral commission, and state electoral laws which have been pointed out to them along with explanations, failing which we shall be seeking redress in court. Same for all the parties concerned. They have 30 days, which begin from today.

This is the first leg of it.