Edo State Governor, Monday Okpebholo seems to have started on the wrong footing regarding the issues concerning the executive councils of the 18 local government areas. And that is dangerous.
It is strange that the Governor elected to, using the State House of Assembly, suspend local government chairmen in defiance of the Supreme Court’s verdict, which granted autonomy to the council areas.
The Supreme Court’s verdict granting local government autonomy implies that chairmen are to manage local councils without interference. There cannot be any other reading of that verdict.
However, Governor Okphebolo appears to have had an entirely different interpretation when he directed the chairmen to submit financial records of their respective council areas to the state government, a directive the council chairmen declined to obey.
Riding on the chairmen’s refusal to submit their financial records, Governor Okphebolo wrote to the Edo State House of Assembly, which passed a resolution suspending the chairmen and vice chairmen of the 18 local government councils for two months.
While not condoning mismanagement of public resources, we find it hard to rationalise Governor Okphebolo’s request for the chairmen to submit their finances. Imagine a scenario where the president asks a governor to submit his state’s financial record.
What does Governor Okphebolo need the councils’ financial records for? Does he suspect they mismanaged the funds? If he had any reason to believe that the council chairmen misused, or, as is always the case with our public office holders, outrightly diverted the funds, the Edo governor should have petitioned the antigraft agencies.
Without any prevarication, his directive for the submission of financial records runs contrary to the Supreme Court’s ruling, which grants financial autonomy and independence to the local government. The State Assembly should have known better.
We find it hard to rationalise the fact that a governor can direct the State Assembly to suspend democratically elected chairmen and their vice for insubordination when these officials enjoy autonomy and independence as enshrined in the Constitution.
In our considered opinion, based on the intent and spirit of the 1999 Constitution as amended, which was further reinforced by the decisive verdict of the nation’s apex court, the local council chairmen are not subordinates of the governor, the State Assembly, or any other arm of government.
The fact that the nation operates a three-tier government with clearly defined powers for executive and legislative structures is not in doubt. And like most Nigerians, we thought the nation had moved past the era where governors displayed desperate attempts to usurp the powers of local government. Events in Edo show otherwise.
Ironically, this suspension comes barely a few hours after the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) commended governors who allowed local government chairmen to manage local councils without interference following the Supreme Court’s judgment granting local government autonomy.
It is clear that governors have yet to wean themselves off their stubborn desire to maintain tight control over local governments. This is what has effectively reduced this tier of government to a mere extension of the state government.
Governors’ inordinate ambitions to chain local governments, ensure they remain perpetually subservient to state control, and maintain a tight grip on local government finances must end.
Governors have effectively assumed the role of emperors, using local government funds pooled into joint accounts as if they were their personal funds. Starved of resources, local governments, despite being the closest tier of government to the people, have remained utterly dormant and ineffective.
Already, there are speculations that the suspension is part of the overall plan to dissolve the council chairmen who are of a different political party from the governor’s APC, as governors often do when they inherit council chairmen from another political party. The council chairmen must be allowed to serve out their terms. Attempts to undermine the sovereignty of council chairmen or any elected office holder, for that matter, must be resisted.
As for the two-month suspension slapped on the council chairmen, we urge the court to outlaw it since the council chairmen, obviously pre-empting the moves, had approached an Edo State High Court, where they sought an order restraining the governor or the state assembly from giving directives or interfering with sovereignty. If allowed to stand, the suspension has the tendency to disrupt governance at the local government level by bringing it to a halt.
