Chaos begetting chaos

By 

Jide Ajani 

Any fool can make a rule and every fool will mind it.

Were that the case with the on-going dramatisation of insensitivity on display by the politicians regarding the electoral bill being put together, specifically as it affects the order of elections and the tenure of Local Government Council Chairmen, it would have been a simple matter of one group of fools, as the Senate is in the danger of portraying itself, making a rule, and another group of fools, as the governors who had the opportunity to present themselves as being capable of rising above sentimental and mundane considerations but failed to capture the opportunity, minding it.

But the matter is not that straight forward.

It is about the collective future of Nigeria and Nigerians.

It is about the morality that is expected to form the fulcrum of all good laws in any land.

And it is about the need not to sacrifice the nation’s interest for selfish pursuit of power in a country that has witnessed and may still witness a wave of political violence as almost always fueled by the tokenist tendencies of the politicians.

The story is all about the way and manner the Senate went about re-ordering the elections to be held in 2003; with a concomitant effect of elongating the three year tenure of Local Government Council Chairmen.

Firstly, it declared last week that the proposed Local Government Council elections already scheduled to hold in April next year, would no longer hold until 2003. It then went further by stating that it would only hold after the presidential elections have kicked off the round of elections to be held in that same year.

The 36 state governors have risen collectively to denounce the position of the Senate; and have gone as far as threatening to conduct the Local Government elections next year as earlier scheduled. But the real story is not about how or when elections are to be held.

It is about barefaced power play between members of the National Assembly and the 36 state governors in the country. It is about the entrenchment of positions. It is about the positioning for control and domination. And it is about positioning for the spoils and privileges of political office.

The real story begins with the pockets of confrontation between elected and appointed public office holders at the federal level and those elected into offices at the state level.

Information available to Vanguard suggests that some of the elected officers at the federal level, legislators, that is, had made some seemingly untoward requests to the governors of their respective states. The governors, it was gathered, turned down some, and honoured some depending on the intimacy of the relationship between the requesting party and the consenting party. But in most cases, the denial of such requests soon led to the creation of bad blood between elected officers at the federal level and those in the states.

Gradually, the chasm widened and it soon became a matter of one legislator being overtly antagonistic to his state governor, just as the state governor began plotting how best to whittle down the power base of the legislator by directly or indirectly dis-empowering those perceived as being close to but not even necessarily friendly with legislators in the National Assembly.

Although this can not be said to be the reason for the tension between federal legislators and governors in all the states, a larger part of the problem on the ground was caused by these earlier disagreements. A manifestation of the extent of the crisis was the first attempt by the National Assembly members to legislate for local council operations in the country, a move which some state governors kicked against.

The insinuation by members of the National Assembly was and remains that the state governors have extended their domain of governance and influence to include operations at the local council levels.

While the legislators may be crying wolf, Section 7 (1) of the 1999 Constitution 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."

Just as the Fourth Schedule, Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution, where the functions of the Local Government Council are spelt out, its Section 2(d) goes further to say its functions shall include "such other functions as may be conferred on a local government council by the House of assembly of the State."

The tussle over who has the right to control the affairs of a local government council did not just start today and may not be about to end. But observers are of the view that at the rate the two arms are going about it, there is a high capacity for combustion within the political system.

And the Senate is now threatening to bring the roof down. Claiming its own source of power from the provisions in Part Two, Section 4 of the Concurrent Legislative List, where the "extent of Federal and State Legislative Powers" are spelt out, the 1999 Constitution states in Item 11 that:

"The National Assembly may make laws for the Federation with respect to the registration of voters and the procedure regulating elections to a local government council."

Mind you, the item 12, directly following what the National Assembly may or may not do, expressly glorifies the status of a state house of assembly by saying "nothing in paragraph 11 hereof shall preclude a House of Assembly from making laws with respect to election to a local government council in addition to but not inconsistent with any law made by the National Assembly" That is, a state house of assembly may also make laws in addition to the laws made by the National Assembly but such laws shall not be inconsistent "with any law made by the National Assembly."

Among the five issues which the Senate decided to discuss behind closed doors were the presidential elections, tenure of LG and governors who had been elected at any two previous elections.

It was in States like Akwa Ibom, Kaduna, Ebonyi and Ondo, where the governors had attempted to rein in Council Chairmen perceived as being uncooperative that the problem actually started. Events in these states had created the impression that the governors had the powers to have their way. And the governors’ ready response was that the people at the grassroots look up to the state government more than they looked up the Local Government Chairmen for performance which was not forth coming from the latter group. As a result of this, the governors took it upon themselves to beat to shape erring LG Chairmen. But was it constitutional.

What the governors did, in some cases, Ondo State, for instance, was to facilitate the enactment of a legislation which empowered the state chief executive to remove LG Chairmen from office. Already, about half a dozen chairmen have suffered fates ranging from removal from office to suspension in Ondo State.

Even the by-elections in the Ilaje area of Ondo State, which also became a victim of the internal crisis rocking the Alliance for Democracy, AD, brought out the worst in Nigeria’s uncoordinated federal system. While the elections were supposed to be organised by the State Independent Electoral Commission, SIEC, in the State, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, claimed that it wanted to test its new Voters’ Register, and so decided to take it over. The Ondo State Government refused to allow INEC conducts the elections. Three times dates were fixed, three times the State Government changed the arrangement of INEC. But Section 118 expressly confirms the role of INEC in election supervision viz:

"The registration of voters and the conduct of elections shall be subject to the direction and supervision of the Independent National Electoral Commission." 

At the end of the day, the State Government went ahead to conduct its own elections without the benefit of INEC’s Voters’ Register. A winner emerged.

In Kaduna, about ten had allegedly suffered similar fates before the party leadership intervened. It was this signal which members of the National Assembly saw from the states, interfaced with their own problems with their respective governors, which flung them into the rageful legislation which they passed last week.

So, in order to avert a situation where the governors would entrench themselves more with the LG polls of April next year, the Senate engaged a gear of sentiment without reason by pushing the LG polls to 2003.

The implication in this move is that the tenure of three years for LG Chairmen, anchored on the 1992 LG Act, has been suddenly extended to four years.

Their argument is that should the LG polls hold next year, every other elective office would be at the mercy of the governors because they would have succeeded in paying the piper.

They further argue that the seeming acquiescence of the other governors was merely indicative of what they were all capable of doing. But does this position confer the power on the Senate to make a seemingly retroactive law?

At this rate, the senate could just as well decide to wake up, as it did last week, and legislate for an extension of its own tenure of office, again expecting, as it is doing now, that the provisions of such an extension should accommodate the present crop of legislators who were sworn in to spend four years to now spend six, eight or even ten years as the spirit may direct them. The governors have vowed to go ahead with the elections next year irrespective of any shambolic legislation by the Senate.

Irrespective of the majority the PDP wields in the National Assembly and at the governorship realm, the House of Representatives, which is quick to jump at any opportunity for populist posturing has already stolen the initiative by presenting itself as being more interested in national unity than the spoils of office. While it stands to benefit from the position of the Senate - because most of its members too have similar problems with their state governors - the members say it would not go along with any legislation that would seek to put the presidential elections ahead of other elections in the country.

Rather, majority of the members say they would prefer a situation where all the elections are held on the same day, a situation of every man to himself and God Almighty for us all. That way, it is being argued, no candidate or groups of candidates would have undue advantage over the others.

In more normal climes, what the Senate should have done is seek ways of amending parts of the constitution where clarity is lacking. That way, it would have succeeded in presenting itself as a body largely interested in the progress and development of Nigeria.

But to now act in a manner suggestive of selfish intent, not minding the consequences on Nigeria and Nigerians is to prepare chaos, big time.  

November 2001