Bill to establish local government electoral commission pass first reading in Senate
The proposed federal agency for the conduct of local government elections in Nigeria was introduced in the Senate on Thursday by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Sani Musa, the Lawmaker representing Niger East was read for the first time during plenary.
The Bill which has passed first reading, follows a ruling by the Supreme Court which granted full autonomy to Local Government councils.
Also, Ibrahim Khalid Mustapha, senator representing Kaduna North Senatorial District in the 10th National Assembly while appearing as guest recently on an NTA talk show programme suggested the scrapping of State Independent Electoral Commission to make room for level playing ground in local government elections.
He argued that aside financial independence for local governments as ruled by the Supreme Court, independence and fairness in the electoral process under which new chairmen and councilors evolve is critical to entrenching true federalism in Nigeria.
Last week, the Supreme Court ordered the federal Government to forthwith pay allocations due to Local Government from the federation account directly to the LG councils, a landmark judgement that grants LGs financial autonomy.
The Apex Court also ruled that governors do not have any constitutional power to dissolve democratically elected local government councils, and declared caretaker committees set up by state governments as unconstitutional.
The Seven-man panel of Justices delivered this judgement on Thursday in the suit filed by the Federal Government against the 36 state governors seeking full autonomy for the 774 local governments in the country.
