Supreme Court ruling on LG’il bring sanity to the system -Onitsha Human Rights lawyer

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Obumneme Eze, a lawyer

By Alphonsus Nweze, Onitsha

An Onitsha-based human right lawyer, Mr. Obumneme Eze, has said that the latest judgment by the Supreme Court on the country’s Local Governments would bring sanity to the system.

Speaking in an interview with newsmen, the legal practitioner said the Governors abused powers confered on the States by the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to have joint accounts with the local governments in each of the respective states.

He said the Governors hijacked the money for themselves and compelled the Local Governments to give them a kind of authorisation, which was a clear violation of the 1999 constitution.

But with the latest ruling by the apex court, he said, the Federal Government is now at liberty to pay the money directly to Local Government coffers.

He said : ” I know it is going to create a kind of confusion but we have to face realities because Governors are the problem when it comes to this matter.There was serious abuse of their powers. So the Supreme Court kind of tried to whittle down their powers and bring sanity to what is happening”.

The rights lawyer said the ruling would help salvage the situation and bring the constitution to its proper perspective because the constitution abinitio was kind of bastardized by the actions of these Governors.

He saidthe Nigeria democracy is not such that powers could devolve to the grassroot and therefore was subject to abuse because we don’t have strong institutions that can outlive people but strong individuals.

” The Governors become strong institutions. The president becomes the strongest institution that determined what happens and who gets what.So powers to conduct Local Government election confered on the State Electoral Commissioner are directly under the State Governors. What they did was to hijack the powers. They just appointed whoever they want. So without INEC conducting the Local Government election, there would still be trouble of selection and imposition by the Governors” said the lawyer.

He gave Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anàmbra State pass mark, saying that he has surpassed his expectsion and done better than any other Governor of Anambra.

The lawyer said he has gone round Anambra State and the performance of Soludo especially on road construction cannot be contradicted even by the worst opposition.

Turning to the leadership crisis in All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Eze said the party needs political solution to address its challenges because according to him, Edozie Njoku, the current chairman would need the support of the Governor to succeed in running the party, while the Governor needs him to get the ticket of the party in 2025.