ANAMBRA State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, understands how desirous the people of the state want his administration to conduct council polls. At his second term inauguration, Obi promised to conduct the council election 'within 90 days.' It was a promise the people might have had no reason to bank on.In what is now a pattern of excuses, Obi has told the people that the voters' register, on which he was elected, was not good 'for anything' and therefore could not be used for the council polls. A promise was made to reconstruct it.Today, the Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission (ANSIEC) has taken delivery of a brand new voters' register from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). And if that was a progress of sorts, the process went back two steps when the chairman of ANSIEC Prof Titus Eze was sacked under uncertain circumstances. His sack is now listed as a fresh reason to truncate the much expected council election.The state chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Chief Pat Orjiakor, said, 'there is nothing holding the conduct of the election apart from the fact that Obi does not want to do it. He has been passing the buck and blaming the delay on ANSIEC, but it is all mere political talk.'The state last conducted council polls in 1998 during the administration of Dr Chinwoke Mbadinuju (1999-2003). The tenure of the elected chairmen ran from May 29, 1999 till May 29, 2003. Dr. Chris Ngige, who succeeded Mbadinuju made efforts to conduct council elections but the politics of his truncated tenure, hampered him. Since then, the polls have been caught in one crisis or the other.Obi has cited several excuses, from insecurity, opposition to his All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) government, paucity of funds, inadequate voters' register, etc, why the council election has not held.Orjiakor sees government's posture over the council election as lawless and said that the non-conduct of the elections could be the reason for the high rate of unemployment and violent crimes. 'If the council election were conducted, there would be at least 21 chairmen with the deputies, about 420 councilors, drivers, aides and supervisory councilors,' he said.Mr. Jerry Nnubia, the President of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) in Anambra described the situation as an aberration and a breach of the Constitution. The situation has prevented people from having their say and prevents initiative and 'this is unacceptable under democracy.'He said that the NULGE headquarters supports the amendment of the Constitution to checkmate the loopholes being exploited by governors like Obi. He said NULGE had appealed to Obi, the state House Assembly and ANSIEC on the polls and notes that 'the only move remaining now is for stakeholders to come together and pressure the governor to organise the polls.'A member of the Labour Party (LP) Chief Dom Ogbuneke described the manner the former ANSIEC chairman, Prof. Eze was sacked as a ploy to force him to seek legal action which will buy Obi time and further delay the polls. He pointed out the irregularity of the appointment of incumbent secretary of the electoral body, Mr. B.C Uzoka who with the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Chief Dubem Obaze and the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Chinwe Nwaebili hail from the same area.Meanwhile, Chief Sylvester Okonkwo, who has replaced Prof Eze as chairman confirmed that they were going ahead 'with the election processes.' But it has been pointed out that the ANSIEC law has no provision for an acting chairman and this means that anything Okonkwo does may be invalidated until a substantive chairman is appointed.The state chairman of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) Jude Ezenwafor, said that 'efforts are on to get an injunction to restrain Obi from the continued usage of the federal allocations to the councils.'Tempest Udenze, a former member of the Nnewi North Council executive said that the 'Local Government system, which would have been used to cushion unemployment and rural infrastructure development needs of the state has collapsed. Virtually nothing under the present administration is working. It is unfortunate that the stakeholders have swallowed the governor's tricks.'Rev Father Martin Onukwuba, who is the coordinator of Justice, Development, Peace Commission (JDPC) of the Archdiocese of Onitsha pointed out that, 'the lack of democratically elected officials at the councils for so long means that the executive has shortchanged the citizens. It means that the people have been fooled as governorship candidates in the last election made the conduct of council polls a campaign issue.'But the Commissioner for Information and Culture, Chief Maja Umeh has said that the council elections would be held once the ANSIEC is ready. He said that, 'the Executive is in not impeding the smooth progress of the function of the Commission and that everything was in order for the conduct of the polls.'Pointing out the illegality of the situation in Anambra, Chief Ben-Chuks Nwosu, the former Speaker of the state Assembly, noted, 'any state without elected councils is an aberration. Transition or Caretaker Committees are unknown to law and any law, which is inconsistent with the Constitution, is illegal.'A caretaker council administration has no constitutional powers to appropriate funds from the federal allocation. And any state government that appropriates council funds is guilty of an offense known as fiscal misappropriation of funds. The issue of Anambra not conducting council elections presupposes that the funds of the councils are for the period of the absence of the elected chairmen held in trust and will be accounted for. The only way a state government can extricate itself from this constitutional imperative is to hold council election.In another development, the state chairman of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Chief Amaechi Obidike, claimed that, 'Obi is not interested in conducting the election while he is aware that other states have held theirs or are in the process of holding the election.'The PDP chairman Chief Ken Emeakayi pointed out that, 'Anambra has not recovered from the failure of previous PDP administrations of Mbadinuju and Ngige to conduct the elections. But from 2006 to date, it is uncertain if the same forces have interfered with the Obi administration. And only Obi can explain why he has not conducted the council polls. To the reasons are not farfetched.'In the absence of the election, Obi controls the several billions accruing to the 21 councils from the federation account monthly. In compliance of the constitution, there should be a state, local council joint account committee responsible for the distribution of the funds. The joint account committee has not been in operation. The non-existence of the Joint account committee is an affront to the entire acts of National Assembly.'He has listed the absence of a credible voters' register but now that a new voters' register is in place. Recently, he sacked the chairman of ANSIEC and has now said that the ANSIEC is not ready.Another member of the PDP said: 'We in the PDP have done all we need to do to get Obi conduct the election. We have written drawn his attention to the violations, which are impeachable offenses and have asked him to resign on the breach of the constitution he took oath to uphold. We had also given him pre-action notices on the events he failed to comply. We have also written to the state Assembly on these breaches.'On the expiration of the pre-action notices on the Assembly and Obi and nothing happened, we filed an action in the High Court, Awka, in March 2011. The suit is pending before Justice P.F. Olayinka. The governor has not filed any defense, the Attorney General of the Federation and the Accountant General of the Federation and the Speaker, State House of assembly. The matter has suffered more than five long adjournments and on each new date the Attorney General of the state, without filing any process will appear and ask for an adjournment and the judge accedes to it, despite stiff opposition for the plaintiff.'The judge is not seeing the urgency. One of the prayers was for the court to restrain Obi from appointing Transition Committees and to restrain the Attorney General, and the Accountant General of the Federation, etc from releasing monies accruing to the 21 councils to the Obi administration pending the determination of the suit or the conduct of the council poll. We are also asking that the entire funds accruing to the councils to be paid into a dedicated account with the Central Bank of Nigeria. But one month after the Obi administration was served with the processes of the court and on the very last day of the Assembly, which was also served, they pointed the 21 transition committees.The Federal Government has continued to release the funds despite being served the processes and being aware of the suit.'Do we now take laws into our hands' No. We have taken it to God. Many people who were standing for councillorship and chairmanship elections are still there; many have died. The council administration system is dead in the state. We have also learnt that even the leadership of APGA is no longer comfortable with the situation.'The network of organised bodies, Civil Society Organisations and Media groups (CSOMPAN) in Anambra, recently condemned the establishment and extension of the tenure of the Caretaker Committees in the 21 councils. They said they are also concerned about the poor image the situation has hung on the state.The communiqu asserted that no further reasons would be acceptable for the delay especially when other states had conducted council elections or are in the process of conducting theirs.The people however are optimistic that the pressure from the within the state does compel Obi to hold the council polls, maybe he would tow the line of other governors. In a recent interview, the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum and Governor of Rivers State Rotimi Amaechi said, 'at the Governors Forum we have resolved that in the next few months governors who have not conducted council elections should endeavour to do that. All governors are very willing to conduct elections. Lagos and Niger have finished theirs.
Click here to read full news..
