As reactions continue to trail the recent judgment delivered by the Supreme Court on local government autonomy, some lawyers have said the apex court verdict did not imply that the Independent National Electoral Commission should henceforth conduct LG elections in the country.
Recall that the apex court on Thursday declared that it was unconstitutional for state governors to hold funds allocated for local government administrations.
The seven-man panel, in the judgment delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim, declared that the 774 local government councils in the country should manage their funds themselves.
The apex court also held that the power of the government is portioned into three arms of government, the federal, the state and the local government.
The court further declared that a state government has no power to appoint a caretaker committee and a local government council is only recognisable with a democratically elected government.
“A democratically elected local government is sacrosanct and non-negotiable,” the court said.
It further held that the use of a caretaker committee amounts to the state government taking control of the local government and is in violation of the 1999 Constitution.
Reacting to the judgment on Friday, some observers said the apex court, through the judgement, has indirectly ordered INEC to henceforth conduct local government elections in the country.
However, speaking with Sunday PUNCH yesterday, some senior lawyers argued that the apex court judgment did not imply that INEC should take over the LG election responsibilities from the State Independent Electoral Commissions.
In his submission, a lawyer, Eze Onyekpere, said, “I did not see any directive of such in the judgment of the Supreme Court. There was no directive that INEC should take over the work of SIEC. Such thing requires an amendment of the constitution. And the Supreme Court has no constitutional power or duty to do so. It can only interprete. So I did not see such directive. The apex court can’t even give such order.
“Moreover, there is no basis to shift the SIEC responsibility to INEC because the Federal commission hasn’t proven itself to be a responsible agency that can organise a credible election for the country.”
Also commenting, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Adekunle Oyesanya, said, “I don’t think the Supreme Court ever said that. This is my point. But I have read it somewhere that the apex court said it. Some people even said that position was what the Supreme Court judgment implied. But saying something is different from an implication, which is simply an opinion or a person’s interpretation of your statement.”
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