Story by Razaq Adedeji Jimoh & Toyo C. Ngem
Surely, the Lagos residents could be deemed blindfolded to the real intrigues that played out behind the attempted attenuation of the local council development areas (LCDAs) in the state a while back. Lagosians suddenly woke up to hear the news of Lagos Assembly seeking to stop conduct of elections into the “inchoate” 37 LCDAs in the approaching 2025 Local Government Elections in the state. It came as a prospect of a break in the tradition of filling the political administrative offices since their creations and commencement of operations in 2004. Thus, it evolved literally as a noise of the Lagos' version of the cultural shock the local government financial autonomy law appears to inflict on the generating states of Nigeria. But it was a noise of politics with discreet undertow of intrigues for politicking beyond the local government election.
Holding elections into the Lagos’ 37 personal creations was one way the state has sustained their modicum of legality to share in the federal allocations in the face of PDP hubris with the fiery opposition of President Obasanjo’s federal might at the start.
Whatever makes the root of the LCDAs legal standing today must be acknowledged as a product of Southwest’s legal juggernaut in cadre of statesman like Prince Bola Ajibola. It came as their interventions with political solution to the inherent stalemate in the Supreme Court’s rulings on the constitutional conflict surrounding their creations. That intervention gave birth to the recognition of the LCDAs as appendages of the original 20 local governments listed in the 1999 constitution. That is why the official identity of every LCDA is never complete unless it carries the identity of its origin: such as “Alimosho LG, Egbe-Idimu LCDA” for example. Holding elections into their political offices nevertheless makes the legal instrument conferring their official independent sovereignty from their progenitor local governments in spite of the appendage status. It was therefore curious to the discerning mind that the Lagos Assembly would suddenly wake up to think the next best thing to do was to strip the LCDAs of their existential sovereignty.
The Assembly argued that it was being guided by a quest for the path to compliance with the jurisprudence ruling, which invoked the now celebrated ‘law of local government financial autonomy’. As such, in the honorable members view, reverting to appointment of administrators to run the affairs of the LCDAs from 2025 local government election cycle was the best option they had found. It does not seem to connect in my own evaluation, even from the point of notations made by the apex court in arriving at its ruling. It emphatically frowned at running the local governments with “caretaker committee”. It said that “the use of caretaker committee amounted to state government taking over the control of a local government in violation of the 1999 constitution”. And sequel to that, six out of the seven judges ruled by order of the court that the Federal Government should withhold allocations of LGAs governed by unelected officials appointed by governors. Given this clarity, therefore, how a proposal to run the LCDAs by “appointed Executive Secretary” does not equate attempt of Lagos State government to take over their control remains to be argued.
Of course, it could make sense for the state to deem it fit running the LCDAs anyhow it feels seamlessly if one is to argue that they are indeed products of the State’s laws. But to argue along this line is to legally preclude them from sharing in the federal allocations in absolute term this time around. This is because the spirit and letters of the apex court pronouncement is equally binding on the state judiciary to apply. So, whether being a state creation or not, the LCDAs must equally draw their sovereignty from the powers of the people by way of elections before they could operate in parity standard of a local government status. The Assembly would seem self-assured with the claims that the Bill already guarantees the parity by the clause granting them the independent right to own assets and liabilities and take responsibility for the hiring of their own personnel. It could have been neither here nor there for the LCDAs if the attempted attenuation had scaled through.
Anyway, superior wisdom has prevailed that the status quo sustains and elections will hold into the 37 LCDAs in the 2025 Local Government Elections. This, relief came as the statutory National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress, President Bola Tinubu, came to town as home coming for the yuletide holiday in his state where his party is also the ruling government. The coincidence of this with the relief would sensibly suggest his intervention role. But no good readers of Lagos politics would like to disagree that there was more to the issue than it seemed to be simplicita.
DIVISION IN THE PARTY
Some argued that it was an Assembly coup against people of the state. Others suggested it to be an initiative from Abuja with a feint signature of the presidency. However it could have originated, it seems to have its own imprints of attempt to find a way around the many creative artifices many of the states are making to circumvent the full implementation of the financial autonomy law. The only difference in this case of the Lagos’ is that the legislature and the executive did not appear to be on same page for it. In undisputable fact, the issue did set a fissure of delineated antagonism to the state Assembly’s proposals within the systemic body of the ruling APC. This should have an empirical basis in the outright condemnation of the Bill by the party’s elite body of advisers called Governance Advisory Council (GAC).
Many observers were also quick to link the absence of the State Attorney-general, Lawal Pedro, at the public hearing to a potential disharmony of the Executive with the Assembly over the contentious Bill. The latter official invitation to him at the floor of a plenary may give vent to it. While not putting it down on Pedro, Hon Sanni Okanlawon, Chairman of the committee on Local Government had tried to excuse the somewhat failure of the first Public Hearing, which many stakeholders were not able to attend “due to inclement weather”.
Thus, as if it thought itself napping, the Assembly swiftly made a retreat to come back with a repeat of its public Hearing on the Bill. This also followed the general feedbacks of Assembly members from their constituents, which yet converged largely on opposition to the Bill. Giving a speech to reflect this, the speaker, Right Hon Mudashiru Obasa said: “I agree on the need for us to schedule a second allotted day for the public hearing. We are not scrapping the LCDAs. What we are trying to do is examine the recent Supreme Court judgment concerning the Lagos and Local Government Joint Account (JAC) and ensure a system where both parent (LGA) and the LCDAs can work together without the LCDAs being short changed”.
The second public hearing was held anyway – but it made no significant change in position of the draft Bill. “There will be no any conduct of elections into 37 LCDAs” remained the feelers that continued to come out in snippets from the Assembly corridor. The totality of all this would eventually be deemed Speaker Obasa’s affront to the GAC and the Governor.
To hold as additional factor to compound Obasa’s audacious indignation was his Assembly’s refusal to screen and pass for clearance the commissioner nominees for the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) months after it was submitted by the Governor.
As this magazine would rightly conclude from investigations, all this was suffice to assert the veracity of cold war between the executive and the legislature. And in all of this, Obasa became the fall guy for the plot to kill the best of Tinubu’s legacies left behind in Lagos. As a source in the governor’s circle also revealed, it was the reason Sanwo-olu also misaligned with the Assembly over the suspension of Executive Chairman of Alimosho Local Government and it became “the saving grace for Hon. Suleiman Jelili to escape” the due comeuppance the assembly had piled up in trap for him.
The questions thus remain: Why would Obasa want to stop elections into the 37 LCDAs? Could Obasa be making his own script or acting out a script of an enigma? Only the right answers to these could lead us to the future of APC in Lagos.
Civics Weekly seems assured to have the clues. Stay tuned with us.
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