Lateef Fagbemi, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice has advocated abolishing state independent electoral commissioners (SIECs).
Fagbemi proposed that the functions of SIECs be transferred to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during a one-day discourse on Monday.
The House of Representatives organised the debate on the theme of ‘Nigeria’s Security Challenges And Good Governance At The Local Government Levels’.
Fagbemi claimed that governors exploited loopholes in some provisions of the 1999 constitution, effectively rendering local governments powerless and irrelevant.
The minister claimed that these flaws have allowed governors to violate local governments’ rights by utilising SIECs to impose leaders through sham elections.
He stated that other governors who do not hold sham elections install vassals as caretaker leaders for local governments.
Fagbemi advocated for a robust constitutional change that would remove all barriers to the development of local governments and strengthen their ability to carry out constitutionally defined mandates.
He said:
“To achieve this, many experts have proposed that there is a need for the scrapping of the state independent electoral commission.”
“Their functions and powers should be transferred to the independent national electoral commission because the state independent electoral commission remains an appendage to every incumbent governor.
“This is perceived as the root cause of the problem of local government administration in Nigeria.”
The federal government has taken the 36 state governors to the Supreme Court over the long-standing argument over full autonomy for local governments.
The attorney general’s statement came only days after INEC chastised SIECs for transforming local government elections into mere coronation ceremonies.
Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, said:
“Unfortunately, the conduct of local government elections in virtually all the states of the federation has become mere coronation of candidates of the ruling parties.”
“It is time to stop the coronation and conduct proper elections.”