Gbajabiamila, Abaribe call for paradigm shift from current democratic rule

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila on Monday assured Nigerians and the international community of the 9th Assembly’s resolve to follow due process in the process of enacting Local Government autonomy in the ongoing amendment.

Gbajabiamila gave the assurance in Abuja after declaring open the leadership capacity training for Delta State Local Government Councillors, held at the instance of the House Minority Leader, Hon Ndudi Elumelu.

The Speaker who acknowledged that Local Government remains the foundation of democratic governments in Nigeria ideally ought to be the centre of governing activities and governments innovations that serve to improve quality of life for all Nigerian people, however, argued that “the system we have in place now, with an overemphasis on the centralized policy planning and implementation at the federal government level has not served as well.

“We have an obligation to try as much as we can to change the status quo in favour of an alternative that serves present needs and meets future expectations. At the same time, there is an evident need to improve the capacity of those who serve in local government and administration across the country. Political leaders cannot give what they do not have. You can only deliver governance and outcomes to the extent of the skills you have and the understanding you possess.

“At such programmes like this an important contribution to the advancement of local government administration in Nigeria and serves a useful purpose in ensuring the democratic government in Nigeria delivers the promise of development for peace and prosperity for all.

While x-raying the importance of each tier of government in a democratic system,  Gbajabiamila observed that maintained that the three tiers of government “are independent and they check each other. Many people believe there is a separation of powers.

“Let me ask quickly without trying to embarrass any of the Chairmen or any of the Councillors. What do you understand your role to be in government, constitutionally? Does anybody have an answer to that? I don’t think so, but we all have a general understanding. But many of us are not bold enough when we are actually told the specifics of what our roles are because we are beholding to whoever.

“And I said this at the risk of respecting the powers of State Governors, the Federal Government, and is also balancing it on understanding the powers within these responsibilities of the local government.

“So there’s something called ultra vires in law and that concept cuts across everything including governance. I as a president cannot interfere in your work, constitutionally given to you by the Constitution at the Local Government. Neither can you do what the State Governor is supposed to do? So when we talk about separation of powers, most time people understand that concept to mean Executive, Judiciary and the Legislature but that’s a very narrow interpretation of separation of powers.

“That is the horizontal separation of powers. There are two types of separation of powers – the vertical and the horizontal. The vertical separation of powers is what concerns you. And that is Federal, the State and the Local Government it is what makes any sane society work.

“We all try to model ourselves and look at America, look at Germany, look at several other countries not realizing that or understanding that they have clearly defined the roles of everybody and the people who define this role did it for a purpose. So when you go outside the rules that are defined and everybody jumps into everybody’s role will you get what is chaos. But how do you now realize and go back to what we talked about, leadership? You have to be bold. You have to be bold even sometimes at the risk of offending some people.

“For some people, they argue that the local government of governance at the local government level is probably the most important in any democracy because you are the ones that are in touch with the people that matter – people at the Grassroots.”

While responding to question on the efforts being made by the National Assembly to salvage the third tier of government from going into extinction, the Speaker who absolved the National Assembly from failing to endorse the financial autonomy in the 8th Assembly, said, “It’s not for us as legislators to do that. I’m sure you’re surprised, but it’s actually for the people to address, the reason being, we have a constitutional amendment, we will throw it to the people and they will make their decision.

“We did it the last time but we went back to the States and we couldn’t get the two-third there’s a process, we followed due process, we amended it last time but two-third of the States did not agree with us. So it’s the people that will decide whether they want autonomy or not. We will do what we need to do as the Constitution provides.”

On his part, the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Eyinaya Abaribe applauded the grooming process of Local Government Councillors who he described as the first steps of our democratic experience.

“From here they grow up and they go to become members of the Houses of Assembly, National Assembly and so forth. And they need to understand their roles. They need to understand that leadership also comes with certain things just like we have been told inside, leadership comes with responsibility.

“But the word I have for them, the leaders here and also Nigerians is that about 60 years ago, a certain man in the United States called Martin Luther King said that he’s looking forward to a nation that will assess people not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

“And I am telling Nigerians today that what we are looking for in Nigeria is an assessment of people not by where they come from, not by whether they are Fulani or not but if they have the character to be part of Nigeria and I think that’s where the real problem of Nigeria is situated because we have made choices and those choices have not been made on the basis of people being the correct people to do one or the other thing.

“We have made choices on the basis of where you come from and this particular government has been most egregious in making these wrong choices and that’s why it is leading us to the precipice today.

“And all we are asking Nigerians to do is to beg this government of APC to help us step back from the brink because as much as we continue to say that what they are doing is not right, they continue to do it with impunity and every day.

“What we see is much and much and much more difficulties in the ways of Nigerians in making a good living and I think that what we have come to the GOTNI Center today to talk about leadership is that leadership is based on nothing else but on character.

“If you don’t have a good character, you can never make a good leader. It doesn’t matter what or how much educated you are or not educated. And, we think that what they are doing is grooming people to have the right character to train and work for Nigerians, the right character to be able to make the sacrifices that are necessary for this country to go forward.”

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