Court orders Kogi govt to fix date for council polls

A Lokoja High Courthas ordered theKogi State government to, within 45 days, fix a date for the conduct of elections into the state's 21 local government councils.The state Chief Judge, Justice Nasir Ajanah, gave the order on Tuesday in his judgment on a suit filed by the state Chairman of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Mr Haddy Ametuo.Ametuo and six others had challenged the alleged delay in conducting the elections by the defendants who are listed to include the state governor and the House of Assembly.Other defendants are the State Electoral Commission, the state Attorney-General, the Local Government Service Commission and the relevant ministry.Ajanah also declared that provisions of Section 56 of the State Local Government Law 2008 which empowered the executive to appoint transition committees are unconstitutional, null and void.He regretted that 18 months after the court declared as null and void the provisions of the 2008 law on council chairmen's tenure, the state still refused to fix a date for the polls.The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalled that Ajanah had said then that he made the declaration because the 2008 law infringed on Section 7(1) of the constitution.'It is surprising that more than one year and six months after the said decision and one month after the expiration of the local government councils' tenure, the state government is only just presenting a bill to the House of Assembly.'This attitude of government lays credence to the assertion of the claimants that the attitude of the defendants in not fixing a date for the conduct of local government elections is willful and negligent,' the judge said.Ajanah said he had no choice therefore other than to make an order that would enforce provisions of Section 7(1) of the constitution.He said this had made it mandatory that the system of local government councils must run democratically.The judge, however, held that the constitution allowed the administration of local governments by Directors of Local Government since 'the law abhors a vacuum.'He said however that the Directors were not expected to be there indefinitely.
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