Former Ogun State Governor, Chief Segun Osoba, says it is undemocratic for governors to use their political powers to enthrone their party men as chairmen of all local governments in their states.
He said there must be a total change in the country’s political dynamics for federalism to be effective in Nigeria.
The 84-year-old All Progressives Congress (APC) elder statesman spoke on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme aired on Channels Television on Friday.
“If you look at how we conduct our local government elections, I am very unhappy. Virtually, any government in power will claim 100% success in our local government elections.
“It is painful that when local government elections are conducted at the state level, each state will be scoring 100% and when it comes to general elections, those who are scoring 100% in their states either lose the general elections or struggle to survive; it doesn’t speak well of the current democratic system,” Osoba said.
The octogenarian’s comments come after the Supreme Court granted financial autonomy to the third tier of government, directing the Federal Government to pay the 20.60% monthly allocation of the 774 LGs in the country directly to their exclusive accounts and not to accounts controlled by governors. The apex court in the landmark judgement also barred power-drunk governors from dissolving democratically elected local government councils.
Despite the much celebrated Supreme Court verdict, many Nigerians like Osoba hold the notion that true LG autonomy would come in free and fair local government elections where the parties in power in states have no power to coronate LG chairmen in elections conducted by state-controlled electoral umpires which in most cases declare party loyalists of governors as LG chairmen.
He said though the expectations of Nigerians have not been satisfactorily met since 1999, the stability of the democratic dispensation in the Fourth Republic should be considered a gain.
It Is Wrong For One Party To Claim All LG Seats In A State— Osoba
