Restructuring: El-Rufai committee recommends scrapping of LGs

THE All Progressives Congress (APC) Committee on True Federalism inaugurated last August by the John Odigie-Oyegun-led national working committee on Thursday, submitted its report with far-reaching recommendations.

Kaduna State governor and chairman of the committee, Nasir el-Rufai, told the gathering of the party chieftains and leadership that his committee had recommended that local councils be scrapped, while the nation should run two-tier system of government.

The governor promised his committee recommendations on views of Nigerians who sent memoranda and spoke with his team across the country.

Giving further insight into the report, el-Rufai said the predominant position of Nigerians on resource control was that states should be vested with rights to issue a prospecting license for mining of mineral resources, oil and gas.

“Local government autonomy is a very interesting subject in which we were surprised at the outcome. There were divergent opinions on this issue.

“We recommend that the current system of local government administration provided for by the constitution should be amended and that states should be allowed to develop and enact laws to have local government administration system that is peculiar to each of them.

“What we heard from Nigerians is that as far as local government is concerned, there is no one size fits all. We all come from different histories, different cultures, different administrative systems and we believe that the constitution should ensure that there is a democratic local government system in every state but the details of, and the nature of that local government system, the number of local governments should be left to the states and states houses of assembly.

“We proposed amendments to Sections 7,8,162, the first schedule, part one and the first schedule of the constitution to give effect to our recommendations. The section that lists the local governments and their headquarters should be removed, so local governments are no longer named in the constitution. States can create their local governments and determine the structure of their local governments. We are by this, recognising that in a federal system, you cannot have more than two tiers of government. Having three tiers of government is an aberration. There is nowhere in the world where our research has shown us that you have more than two federating units.

“We have proposed that mining, minerals, oil should go to the states. Then there will be certain constitutional amendments. The Petroleum Act will be amended to show that states can now issue oil mining licences; the Land Use Act, Nigeria Minerals and Mining Act, the Petroleum Profit Tax Act 2007 would all need to be amended. So, we have proposed an amendment that will ensure that minerals, mining and oil are vested in the states except for offshore minerals,” he said.

The Kaduna State governor equally disclosed that his team “proposed an amendment to create the State Judicial Council that will appoint and discipline judges within a state while the National Judicial Council will exercise control over the appointment, discipline of judges of the Federal Government only.

“We have proposed the creation of the state court of appeal so that from the high court, you can first appeal to the state court of appeal before it goes to the Supreme Court of the federation. Again, this is consistent with federal practice all over the world.

“We also propose a constitutional amendment to allow for a referendum to be conducted on burning national or state issues before decisions are taken. Right now, the constitution has no room for the referendum, but only in the creation of states.”

Receiving the report, APC national chairman, Chief Oyegun, expressed delight over the report and assured the committee that its recommendations would be given the needed attention by all the statutory organs of the party.