LG AUTONOMY: Moves to scrap SIECs raise dust

*NASS to consider Bill for parallel national electoral body next week

BEGINNING from next week, moves to scrap state independent electoral commissions, SIECs, will gain momentum. Upon resumption from its break on Tuesday, September, the National Assembly, among others, is expected to consider a bill to establish a new body to take over the conduct of local government elections from SIECs.

Before now, the polity was awash with debates on whether conduct of council polls should be returned to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. Those in favour of INEC claimed that the December 5, 1998 council polls conducted by the INEC have remained the best grassroots elections ever since as more parties won seats compared to succeeding polls conducted by SIECs in which ruling parties had the upper hand.

However, the current move is for a parallel national election body to the INEC.

If passed into law, the Bill, sponsored by Senator Mohammed Sani Musa will establish the National Independent Local Government Electoral Commission, NILGEC, and it will be responsible for conducting local government chairmen and councillors elections, and any other matter concerning local governments as the third tier of government.

The bill was introduced after the Supreme Court abolished the joint States and Local Government accounts via its July 2024 judgment.

With the apex court verdict, the polity has been awash with debates on the kind of federalism Nigeria is practising–two tier or three tier. The constitution recognises the states as the federating units of the federation; and Section 162 (6-8) of the 1999 constitution provides for the operation of a joint state/local government account.

Though the Supreme Court has outlawed the section, it remains in the constitution with the National Assembly unable to remove it because it needs the support of two-third of the 36 states houses of assembly via Section 9 of the Constitution.

For the NILGEC to be established, the National Assembly must amend or repeal

Section 197(1) of the Constitution, which states: “There shall be established for each State of the Federation, the State Independent Electoral Commission…”

Sources said leaders of the National Assembly are determined to push through the new law, which will lead to a constitutional impasse over the state/LGAs joint accounts and the implementation of the new law unless sections 162 and 197 of the constitution are amended.