A lawyer, Victor Giwa, has called for a constitutional review to empower the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct local government elections in Nigeria, thereby making them more credible.
The lawyer said council elections in Nigeria lacked credibility as they were used by governors to consolidate their grip on power and compensate political associates.
“What happens in local government in most states is just a fluke, it’s like a charade, it’s an arrangement. Governors of states take advantage of the local government to appoint and nominate their friends, their colleagues, their political supporters into the various local governments, and they see it as their structure.
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“So what can be done is that they need to be a systemic reform of the state laws,” the lawyer spoke on Channels TV’s programme The Morning Brief on Monday.
“And let the local government election be conducted in one day so that all eyes will be in the local government because that is the level of government that is closer to the people, so if you leave the local government election to be conducted by the governors, what they do is; an appointment, selection and an arrangement in the name of election and that is what we have seen in almost every local government.
“The only way we can have some level of sincerity or transparency is that INEC should be made to conduct elections in all the 774 local governments, and INEC will accredit the observer,” he added.
Giwa also alleged that the Rivers LG polls were a plot by political actors to capture state power.
The lawyer added, “I was getting live reports about what was happening and given facts on how the election would go. But mainly, we heard that a very serious issue with attending or observing the election, and the reason is that we have never believed in that election.
“We have also said in so many forums that the sole administrator does not have the jurisdiction, the power to supervise or conduct the local government elections under the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission Law of that state.”
