Despite the revelation by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN) that the use of caretaker committees to run the affairs of local government councils across the country is unconstitutional, no fewer than 24 out of the 36 states of the federation are currently adopting the caretaker approach to run the third tier of government. OLAJIDE OMOJOLOMOJU takes a look at the development.
Perhaps, many would have continued to think that it is a normal phenomenon to appoint caretaker committees to run the local councils by states governors, who normally appoint their cronies as chairmen of these committees, until the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN) publicly denounced the system as being against the tenets and letters of the 1999 Constitution.
Adoke made the declaration during his screening as a ministerial nominee by the Senate last month when, while chiding some governors for violating Section 7 of the Nigerian Constitution by dissolving and appointing caretaker committees to run the affairs of local government council areas, he said: “There is no gainsaying that section 7 of our constitution wants a situation where our local government area councils are manned by democratically-elected personnel. Let me also state clearly that the appointment of caretaker committees is illegal and unknown to law, but regrettably, nobody has challenged this constitutional lapses.
We will wait and if I am reappointed as Attorney-General, we will look at it and try to redress the situation.” Section 7 (1) of the 1999 Constitution as amended states that: “The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils 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 and functions of such councils.”
The constitution further places the power to provide the legal framework for the administration of local councils on states; however, it never conferred on the state such powers as substituting “democratically elected” leaders at that tier of government with “appointed” ones. Adoke described the development as illegal and assured that if he was re-appointed Justice Minister, he would litigate such acts.
He had since returned to office as AGF and Justice Minister and since his assumption of office, no fewer than five states had dissolved local government administrations and set up caretaker committees to man local government councils in their domain, yet the AGF has not began any litigation against them. In the last 12 years, scarcely would we find a state that has not at one point or the other appointed caretaker committees to run the affairs of the local governments.
This the governors do with the connivance of the states Houses of Assembly, which had continued to collaborate with the executive arm of government at the states level to disobey the constitution to satisfy their whims and caprices. Speaking on this development, a former Commissioner of Justice and Attorney General of Abia State, and a constitutional law expert who lectured at the Law Faculties of the University of Lagos and Abia State University, Mr. Awa Kalu (SAN), had this to say: “Can we have an interim Governor, can we have an interim President under the letter and spirit of the constitution? If we cannot have an interim President or Governor or interim Vice President or interim Deputy Governor, then it is the same argument in respect of local government councils. There is no provision for interim local government officers (in the constitution).”
Section 7(6) of the constitution provided for the funding of the local government councils from the federal and state governments purses. However, in the breach of the relevant section of the constitution as it affects the running of the local government, one state that has stood out in the use of transition or what has come to be known in Nigeria’s political vocabulary as caretaker committee in the running of the administration of the third tier of government is Anambra State. Since the advent of the present democratic dispensation, the 21 local governments in the state have been under the control of caretaker committees.
Going by the records, the last democratically elected local officials in the state were elected in 1998, under the military junta. For the major part of the last 12 years, the state governors have at one time or the other appointed civil servants to run the affairs of the councils. Perhaps the only time politicians would run the councils was in June this year when Governor Peter Obi appointed politicians as members of the newly inaugurated caretaker committees for the councils.
Anambra State is not the only state guilty of contravening Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution. Up to date, 23 states across the six geopolitical zones run the administration of this important tier of government with caretaker or transition committees. But more pathetic was the case of Anambra State which had during the administration of Dr Chinmaroke Mbadinuju in 2002, after the expiration of the tenure of the elected council officials who were elected in 1998, concluded arrangements for the conduct of the election, with candidates already picked by the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but the election failed to hold due to the face-off between the former governor and some godfathers who held the state by the jugular then.
All the 33 local government areas in Oyo State are being run by caretaker committee chairmen who were sworn in by Governor Abiola Ajimobi penultimate week. The same situation is applicable in Niger State where the caretaker committees constituted by Governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu run the affairs of the 25 councils in the state pending the local government election slated for October 8. In Benue State, the 23 local government areas are currently being run by appointed caretaker administrators who replaced the elected executives whose tenure elapsed in 2011. In the last two years, caretaker committees appointed by Governor Theodore Orji have been running the affairs of the 17 council areas of Abia State. The 16 local government areas in Ekiti State are being run by caretaker committees constituted by Governor Kayode Fayemi since he assumed office in October 2010.
In Kaduna State, the administration of Governor Patrick Yakowa recently constituted caretaker chairmen to pilot the affairs of the 23 local government areas. In Osun State, the 30 councils and the Modakeke council area office are under caretaker committees put in place since January. It is the same situation in Borno State where Governor Kashim Shettima has appointed caretaker committees to run the 27 council areas. In Delta State, the leadership of 25 LGAs was dissolved on May 13, 2011 following the expiration of the three-year term of the democratically elected chairmen and councillors. No election has been held since then. Neither was caretaker committees set up.
_____________________________________________________________________________
YAKOWA UDUAGHA
______________________________________________________________________________
PETER OBI
______________________________________
The governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, asked the Head of Personnel Managements (HPMs) to manage the councils. Kebbi State has 21 council areas with caretaker committees overseeing them while the 14 local government areas in Zamfara State are being manned by caretaker committees. In Katsina, all the 34 council areas are being run by caretaker committees appointed early this year after the dissolution of the council executive. But what is now a source of worry to stakeholders in the country is the flagrant contravention of the constitution by state governments across the country, especially in the running of local government administration in the country. This anomaly cuts across the various political parties at the helm of affairs in the 36 states of the federation, as it was not limited to just one party.
Speaking on this development, a former chairman of the Ikeja branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Adejunle Ojo said that the use of caretaker committee to run the affairs of the local government councils is an aberration of the highest order. His words: “The use of caretaker committee is an aberration. It is nothing but a short cut to the reality. If by virtue of Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution, the local government is to be run by democratically elected officials, then whatever or whoever is in office at the local government level, in whatever capacity they may be called, except by an election, is occupying office illegally.”
Ojo told National Mirror that the use of caretaker committees came into existence through the local government laws of each state, adding further that such laws are inconsistent with the constitution and that if the affairs of the states are run by a law, then it is totally wrong to circumvent the running of the affairs of the local councils by another set of law which, according to him, contravenes the constitution.
Saying that the practice was an attempt to bring into governance through the back doors, acolytes of the governor and sycophants, who daily sing praises of the governor, Ojo added that: “over time, at the expiration of the tenure of the caretaker chairmen, another set of new people are brought in or recycle those already in office. After all, if we don’t have a caretaker president or a caretaker governor, there is no need to foster caretaker chairman on the people. It is illegal and should be done away it. Why do we have the State Independent Electoral Commissions appointed by the states governors and approved by the states House of Assemblies? They are financed by state funds and they should be seen to be doing their functions.”
He added that where for one reason or the other elections could not be conducted, then permanent secretaries from the state civil service could be seconded to oversee the affairs of the local councils pending when election would be conducted. He advocated that the practice be challenged in a competent court of law which should rule and declare such practice illegal.
Also giving his own opinion on the development, human rights activist, lawyer and former governorship aspirant in Lagos State, Bamidele Aturu, said: “It is nothing but an illegality. Those governors practising it know that they are practising illegality, but they persist because it is an avenue to pacify and compensate their acolytes. There is no other name to be given to it but to declare it illegal. It is a practice that runs contrary to the principles and tenets of Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution.”
Political analysts opined that the governors only hide under the guise of appointing caretaker committees to run the affairs of local governments in their bid to corner the allocations accruable to the local governments for their own selfish ends, adding that at the end of the day, the masses at the grass roots level are not only short changed, but the dividends of democracy continue to elude them. And it was for this reason that many had argued against the continued maintenance of joint allocation accounts for states and local governments. The use of caretaker committees to run the affairs of local government administration in the country has not gone unchallenged.
In Kaduna State, the opposition is ready to slug it out with the state governor, Patrick Yakowa over the development while in Adamawa and Kogi states, the governors, Murtala Nyako and Ibrahim Idris respectively have been in the eye of the storm over the dissolution of the councils and the attempt to constitute caretaker committees to run the local governments. Some legal practitioners have faulted the governors’ action, describing it as nothing but unconstitutional and illegal act. They argued that even where a state House of Assembly enacted law for the administration of local government and inserted the constitution of caretaker committee, such law is null and void as it is against the provision of the 1999 Constitution. Delta State becomes an instant case.
The state House of Assembly enacted a law titled: Local Government Transition and Caretaker Committees (Appointment of Members) Law 2011. And to give bite to the constitution and probably be a pace setter, a chairmanship aspirant in Uvwie Local Government of Delta State, Mr. Victor Akaighe instituted a law suit No. EHC/126/2011 at an Effurun High Court against the Delta Assembly, the state governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan, the Delta State Independent Electoral Commission and the Attorney General of the state, seeking for an order of the court declaring the setting up of a transition and caretaker committee in Delta State illegal, in keeping with Section 7 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.
Akaighe may have taken this bold step following the declaration publicly by the AGF that caretaker committee is illegal and unknown to the law. The nullity of such laws is sanctioned by Section 1(1) which affirmed the supremacy of the 1999 Constitution and “its provisions shall have binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” Section 1(3) further states: “If any law is inconsistent with the provisions of this constitution, this constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void.” By virtue of the above provisions, any law that negates the principle of Section 7 of the Constitution is void and by extension, any law by any state Assembly allowing for the use of caretaker committee to run local government administration is against the principles of Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution and is therefore inconsistent with it and is therefore void.
Leading the battle to correct this seeming anomaly is the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) which is now battle ready against the governors found culpable of this illegality. Towards this end, the NBA, after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Katsina State in the first week of August, ordered its branches in the 36 states to institute legal action against any governor who refuses to conduct local government elections in their domain and rather resort to the use of caretaker committee to run the councils.
The NBA in a communiqué read by its National President, Joseph Daodu said: “We condemn the attitude of some state governments, which had deliberately refused to allow the conduct of elections into Local Government Councils and in breach of the clear wordings of the constitution set up an illegal entity known as caretaker committee which has consequently resulted in the failure to guarantee the existence of democratically elected officials at that tier of governance.
“NEC has mandated all branches of the association in the 36 states faced with such situations to challenge such actions in court.” But to date, the NBA is yet to put to actions its resolve as it is yet to sue any governor to court over the issue. Also the opposition political parties and civil society groups have continued to protest against this constitutional anomaly in the various states of the federation where such act of illegality is perpetuated. As some are wont to say, what is good for the goose is equally good for the gander.
Why are the governors not vacating office at the expiration of tenure for a caretaker committee governor to take their place pending when election would be conducted to fill the office? Those in this school of thought believe that election should have been conducted into the local councils before the expiration of incumbent elected officials so that they would only hand over to elected officials and not caretaker committees. In states like Ondo for instance, just like Anambra, since the inception of the Olusegun Mimiko administration, election is yet to be held to elect local government council officials.
The councils have been managed by caretaker committees for over two and a half years. This urgly development has prompted stakeholders to ask the billion naira faction: in whose interest is the continued use of caretaker committees to run local government administrations in Nigeria? Is it in the interest of the teeming rural dwellers who should benefit from the government closer to them or the interest of governors and their cronies anad praise singers who milk the third tier of government dry and devoid of any meaningful development? The days ahead would definitely change the shape and the look of local government councils’ administration in Nigeria, but before then, caretaker committees continue to oversee the administration of local government councils in more than a two-third of the states of the federation.Source: National Mirror
We will wait and if I am reappointed as Attorney-General, we will look at it and try to redress the situation.” Section 7 (1) of the 1999 Constitution as amended states that: “The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils 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 and functions of such councils.”
The constitution further places the power to provide the legal framework for the administration of local councils on states; however, it never conferred on the state such powers as substituting “democratically elected” leaders at that tier of government with “appointed” ones. Adoke described the development as illegal and assured that if he was re-appointed Justice Minister, he would litigate such acts.
He had since returned to office as AGF and Justice Minister and since his assumption of office, no fewer than five states had dissolved local government administrations and set up caretaker committees to man local government councils in their domain, yet the AGF has not began any litigation against them. In the last 12 years, scarcely would we find a state that has not at one point or the other appointed caretaker committees to run the affairs of the local governments.
This the governors do with the connivance of the states Houses of Assembly, which had continued to collaborate with the executive arm of government at the states level to disobey the constitution to satisfy their whims and caprices. Speaking on this development, a former Commissioner of Justice and Attorney General of Abia State, and a constitutional law expert who lectured at the Law Faculties of the University of Lagos and Abia State University, Mr. Awa Kalu (SAN), had this to say: “Can we have an interim Governor, can we have an interim President under the letter and spirit of the constitution? If we cannot have an interim President or Governor or interim Vice President or interim Deputy Governor, then it is the same argument in respect of local government councils. There is no provision for interim local government officers (in the constitution).”
Section 7(6) of the constitution provided for the funding of the local government councils from the federal and state governments purses. However, in the breach of the relevant section of the constitution as it affects the running of the local government, one state that has stood out in the use of transition or what has come to be known in Nigeria’s political vocabulary as caretaker committee in the running of the administration of the third tier of government is Anambra State. Since the advent of the present democratic dispensation, the 21 local governments in the state have been under the control of caretaker committees.
Going by the records, the last democratically elected local officials in the state were elected in 1998, under the military junta. For the major part of the last 12 years, the state governors have at one time or the other appointed civil servants to run the affairs of the councils. Perhaps the only time politicians would run the councils was in June this year when Governor Peter Obi appointed politicians as members of the newly inaugurated caretaker committees for the councils.
Anambra State is not the only state guilty of contravening Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution. Up to date, 23 states across the six geopolitical zones run the administration of this important tier of government with caretaker or transition committees. But more pathetic was the case of Anambra State which had during the administration of Dr Chinmaroke Mbadinuju in 2002, after the expiration of the tenure of the elected council officials who were elected in 1998, concluded arrangements for the conduct of the election, with candidates already picked by the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but the election failed to hold due to the face-off between the former governor and some godfathers who held the state by the jugular then.
All the 33 local government areas in Oyo State are being run by caretaker committee chairmen who were sworn in by Governor Abiola Ajimobi penultimate week. The same situation is applicable in Niger State where the caretaker committees constituted by Governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu run the affairs of the 25 councils in the state pending the local government election slated for October 8. In Benue State, the 23 local government areas are currently being run by appointed caretaker administrators who replaced the elected executives whose tenure elapsed in 2011. In the last two years, caretaker committees appointed by Governor Theodore Orji have been running the affairs of the 17 council areas of Abia State. The 16 local government areas in Ekiti State are being run by caretaker committees constituted by Governor Kayode Fayemi since he assumed office in October 2010.
In Kaduna State, the administration of Governor Patrick Yakowa recently constituted caretaker chairmen to pilot the affairs of the 23 local government areas. In Osun State, the 30 councils and the Modakeke council area office are under caretaker committees put in place since January. It is the same situation in Borno State where Governor Kashim Shettima has appointed caretaker committees to run the 27 council areas. In Delta State, the leadership of 25 LGAs was dissolved on May 13, 2011 following the expiration of the three-year term of the democratically elected chairmen and councillors. No election has been held since then. Neither was caretaker committees set up.
_____________________________________________________________________________
YAKOWA UDUAGHA
______________________________________________________________________________
PETER OBI
______________________________________
The governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, asked the Head of Personnel Managements (HPMs) to manage the councils. Kebbi State has 21 council areas with caretaker committees overseeing them while the 14 local government areas in Zamfara State are being manned by caretaker committees. In Katsina, all the 34 council areas are being run by caretaker committees appointed early this year after the dissolution of the council executive. But what is now a source of worry to stakeholders in the country is the flagrant contravention of the constitution by state governments across the country, especially in the running of local government administration in the country. This anomaly cuts across the various political parties at the helm of affairs in the 36 states of the federation, as it was not limited to just one party.
Speaking on this development, a former chairman of the Ikeja branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Adejunle Ojo said that the use of caretaker committee to run the affairs of the local government councils is an aberration of the highest order. His words: “The use of caretaker committee is an aberration. It is nothing but a short cut to the reality. If by virtue of Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution, the local government is to be run by democratically elected officials, then whatever or whoever is in office at the local government level, in whatever capacity they may be called, except by an election, is occupying office illegally.”
Ojo told National Mirror that the use of caretaker committees came into existence through the local government laws of each state, adding further that such laws are inconsistent with the constitution and that if the affairs of the states are run by a law, then it is totally wrong to circumvent the running of the affairs of the local councils by another set of law which, according to him, contravenes the constitution.
Saying that the practice was an attempt to bring into governance through the back doors, acolytes of the governor and sycophants, who daily sing praises of the governor, Ojo added that: “over time, at the expiration of the tenure of the caretaker chairmen, another set of new people are brought in or recycle those already in office. After all, if we don’t have a caretaker president or a caretaker governor, there is no need to foster caretaker chairman on the people. It is illegal and should be done away it. Why do we have the State Independent Electoral Commissions appointed by the states governors and approved by the states House of Assemblies? They are financed by state funds and they should be seen to be doing their functions.”
He added that where for one reason or the other elections could not be conducted, then permanent secretaries from the state civil service could be seconded to oversee the affairs of the local councils pending when election would be conducted. He advocated that the practice be challenged in a competent court of law which should rule and declare such practice illegal.
Also giving his own opinion on the development, human rights activist, lawyer and former governorship aspirant in Lagos State, Bamidele Aturu, said: “It is nothing but an illegality. Those governors practising it know that they are practising illegality, but they persist because it is an avenue to pacify and compensate their acolytes. There is no other name to be given to it but to declare it illegal. It is a practice that runs contrary to the principles and tenets of Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution.”
Political analysts opined that the governors only hide under the guise of appointing caretaker committees to run the affairs of local governments in their bid to corner the allocations accruable to the local governments for their own selfish ends, adding that at the end of the day, the masses at the grass roots level are not only short changed, but the dividends of democracy continue to elude them. And it was for this reason that many had argued against the continued maintenance of joint allocation accounts for states and local governments. The use of caretaker committees to run the affairs of local government administration in the country has not gone unchallenged.
In Kaduna State, the opposition is ready to slug it out with the state governor, Patrick Yakowa over the development while in Adamawa and Kogi states, the governors, Murtala Nyako and Ibrahim Idris respectively have been in the eye of the storm over the dissolution of the councils and the attempt to constitute caretaker committees to run the local governments. Some legal practitioners have faulted the governors’ action, describing it as nothing but unconstitutional and illegal act. They argued that even where a state House of Assembly enacted law for the administration of local government and inserted the constitution of caretaker committee, such law is null and void as it is against the provision of the 1999 Constitution. Delta State becomes an instant case.
The state House of Assembly enacted a law titled: Local Government Transition and Caretaker Committees (Appointment of Members) Law 2011. And to give bite to the constitution and probably be a pace setter, a chairmanship aspirant in Uvwie Local Government of Delta State, Mr. Victor Akaighe instituted a law suit No. EHC/126/2011 at an Effurun High Court against the Delta Assembly, the state governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan, the Delta State Independent Electoral Commission and the Attorney General of the state, seeking for an order of the court declaring the setting up of a transition and caretaker committee in Delta State illegal, in keeping with Section 7 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.
Akaighe may have taken this bold step following the declaration publicly by the AGF that caretaker committee is illegal and unknown to the law. The nullity of such laws is sanctioned by Section 1(1) which affirmed the supremacy of the 1999 Constitution and “its provisions shall have binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” Section 1(3) further states: “If any law is inconsistent with the provisions of this constitution, this constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void.” By virtue of the above provisions, any law that negates the principle of Section 7 of the Constitution is void and by extension, any law by any state Assembly allowing for the use of caretaker committee to run local government administration is against the principles of Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution and is therefore inconsistent with it and is therefore void.
Leading the battle to correct this seeming anomaly is the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) which is now battle ready against the governors found culpable of this illegality. Towards this end, the NBA, after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Katsina State in the first week of August, ordered its branches in the 36 states to institute legal action against any governor who refuses to conduct local government elections in their domain and rather resort to the use of caretaker committee to run the councils.
The NBA in a communiqué read by its National President, Joseph Daodu said: “We condemn the attitude of some state governments, which had deliberately refused to allow the conduct of elections into Local Government Councils and in breach of the clear wordings of the constitution set up an illegal entity known as caretaker committee which has consequently resulted in the failure to guarantee the existence of democratically elected officials at that tier of governance.
“NEC has mandated all branches of the association in the 36 states faced with such situations to challenge such actions in court.” But to date, the NBA is yet to put to actions its resolve as it is yet to sue any governor to court over the issue. Also the opposition political parties and civil society groups have continued to protest against this constitutional anomaly in the various states of the federation where such act of illegality is perpetuated. As some are wont to say, what is good for the goose is equally good for the gander.
Why are the governors not vacating office at the expiration of tenure for a caretaker committee governor to take their place pending when election would be conducted to fill the office? Those in this school of thought believe that election should have been conducted into the local councils before the expiration of incumbent elected officials so that they would only hand over to elected officials and not caretaker committees. In states like Ondo for instance, just like Anambra, since the inception of the Olusegun Mimiko administration, election is yet to be held to elect local government council officials.
The councils have been managed by caretaker committees for over two and a half years. This urgly development has prompted stakeholders to ask the billion naira faction: in whose interest is the continued use of caretaker committees to run local government administrations in Nigeria? Is it in the interest of the teeming rural dwellers who should benefit from the government closer to them or the interest of governors and their cronies anad praise singers who milk the third tier of government dry and devoid of any meaningful development? The days ahead would definitely change the shape and the look of local government councils’ administration in Nigeria, but before then, caretaker committees continue to oversee the administration of local government councils in more than a two-third of the states of the federation.Source: National Mirror
