“Elections determines who is in power, but they do not determine how power is used.”—Paul Collier
The above quote is a reflection by a British development economist in one of his works titled “The bottom billionaire: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it”. My digestion of this book necessitated my thoughts and conclusion on one of the major reasons why hard core development eludes local communities and why development is still a mirage in many parts of Nigeria’s urban settlements. If there is any electioneering exercise that is supposed to be the fairest, untainted and uninfluenced representation of the people’s will, it should be local government elections. As a matter of fact, researches have shown that 95 per cent of local government elections held in Nigeria can best be regarded as exercises put up merely to satisfy the constitutional requirement of having elected chairmen: the whole exercise is a mere formality or charade, and could at best be termed premeditated farce by the ruling party. This undeniable fact is perhaps responsible for the age-long argument regarding the status of local governments: whether the local government can be regarded as a tier of government.
A tier of any government is inherently expected to be independent, at least to some reasonable level, from undue external influence from other tiers of government. This does not imply that it should exist or function in isolation, but in complementary subordination to the state government. Section 7(1) of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution guarantees a system of local government by democratically elected councils. The provision clearly states that the system of local government by democratically elected local government council is under this constitution guaranteed, and accordingly, the government of every state shall, subject to section 8 of this constitution, ensure their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance of such councils. The theme of this piece is not focused on whether local government is ipso facto or ipso jure a government or centred on analyzing the propriety or otherwise of using appointed officers in running the governmental affairs of local governments instead of elected officers. Rather, it is an analysis of the pseudo-democratic dispositions of all political actors in Nigeria, in particular the state governors masquerading as democrats.
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The pertinent question that needs be asked is how a governor who came into power by a small percentage of margin votes above the simple majority, on which basis the INEC declared him a winner, would in the twinkling of an eye, or perhaps a few years, claim victory in all the local governments of such a state. This is even more complicated, where there is evidence of his underperformance,and botched electoral promises; where it is very glaring in all ramifications that his performance, since the inception of his administration, is nothing to write home. A democratically elected governor that secured victory with a slim simple majority; that is one-third of votes cast in two-thirds of local governments in his state, would conduct an election into the offices of the chairmen in same state under the same political party that brought him into power and such a party would garner all or almost all the votes in that election! It is true that in some cases, the electorate have the proclivity to consider and vote candidates and not political parties. But then, could it be reasonably justified that the whole candidates, subsequently fielded by the ruling party have grass-roots acceptance from the majority of the electorate in the state?
In a sane clime, democratic will is expressed at every stage of electioneering. Here, we refer to a political environment where people’s will is not suppressed, muscled or buried with a view to satisfying the cynical interests of a few set of political godfathers masquerading as democrats. How can a state governor who won half the total number of the local governments in a state and in spite of wide condemnation of his government for non-payment of salary and other manifest breaches of campaign promises still triumph in all the local governments in the state? Even if, during re-election, he managed to win with less than the number of votes he claimed during his first coming, he would still conduct kangaroo elections and have all the local governments in the state won by his massively criticized party. One wonders what the magic wand could be! It is in the light of this political abracadabra that I submit that the search for true democrats among the Nigerian governors is definitely a pipe dream!
Let me drive home my point by saying that Nigerian political office holders, particularly the governors, are incorrigible betrayers of the system that brought them into power. They are unrepentant political transgressors who indulge in infractions of the core tenets of democracy. Aside their ferocious greed for power which suppresses the will of the majority, they perpetrate electoral heists and see nothing wrong in milking their respective states’ treasuries and diverting money into their personal accounts, money meant for the development of the local communities that constitute their states. Up till this very moment, more than 65 per cent of the 774 local governments in Nigeria are yet to be manned by democratically elected chairmen, years after they had come into power. This, the governors indulge in with pride in defiance of the Supreme Court’s decision on this matter. They would rather impose political protégés who are lorded over the people, as council bosses, so as to stand as agents of looting. This is happening in defiance of the Supreme Court’s judgments in cases that touch on the removal of elected local government chairmen met by newly elected governors. Then, frustratingly you ask, are they really democrats who want the people to be fairly and ably represented at all levels? In whose interest is their cynical selecting process? They are pseudo-democrats.
Balogun, a legal practitioner, writes in from Lagos via: rilwanbalogun60@yahoo.com
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