Mudashiru Obasa, the Speaker of the House, said Monday that the proposed amendment was not meant to victimise or work against elected officials at the local government level.
Mr. Obasa, who spoke at a one-day Stakeholders’ Meeting on the proposed amendment to the state Local Government Law of 2015, was reacting to a portion in the amendment which gave the Assembly the power to remove any erring council chairman.
“The proposed amendment is not meant to victimise any council official rather it is meant to keep the officials on their toes all the time,” said Mr. Obasa (Agege 1, APC).
“Our aim is to achieve effective and efficient governance at the grassroots level. A local government system we will all be proud of.
“We want the elected officials in our local governments to administer the councils in line with the provisions of the constitution.”
The 20 local governments and 37 local council development areas in the state are currently headed by Executive Secretaries appointed by the All Progressives Congress-led state government, with the inability of successive governors to conduct local government elections.
The APC also maintains a majority in the House of Assembly with 32 out of the 40 lawmakers belonging to the party.
Foramfera
Mr. Obasa said the House had received lots of petitions in the past, and presently, against leaders of the local councils.
He insisted that investigations conducted by the Assembly over the years had shown that elected officials, particularly the chairmen, had been running the councils in a way that did not promote peace, order and development at that level of governance.
“We are preparing the ground for election, we cannot continue witnessing the impunity of the past local government officials,” Mr. Obasa added.
In his welcome address, Kazeem Alimi, the chairman of the House Committee on Local Government Administration and Community Affairs, said the bill sought the extension of the tenure of council elected officials from three to four years.
“The proposed amendment intended to limit the number of terms the elected officials could be in office to two while also extending their tenure from three to four years,” said Mr. Alimi (Eti Osa 1).
A former Speaker of the Assembly, Jokotola Pelumi, said the power to create and dissolve the local governments resided with the House of Assembly.
“The life and death of the local governments rest with the state Assemblies,” said Mr. Pelumi, who was impeached by his colleagues in 2005.
“It is not by their making but a power given to them by the constitution of the country, so there is nothing wrong in residing the power to remove any erring chairman in the state Assembly”.
However, Ademola Sadiq, the APC’s Legal Adviser, argued that the power to remove council chairmen ought to be vested with the elected councillors in the local governments.
“They (councillors) should be the ones to remove their chairmen from office instead of the House of Assembly,” said Mr. Sadiq.
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