The
Supreme Court yesterday voided laws enacted by the states’ Houses of Assembly
which allow governors to sack elected Chairmen of Local Governments and
Councillors and replace them appointed administrators.
It
has of recent become a tradition among governors to dissolve the Executive
Councils of the states’ LGs and replace them with their appointees, who they
call caretaker committees. In a unanimous judgement of five Justices of the
Supreme Court described the practice as “executive recklessness”, which must
not be allowed to persist.
The
judgment by the five-man panel, led by Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour was on the
appeal in relation to the dissolution of the 16 Local Government Executives in
Ekiti State, during Kayode Fayemi’s tenure.
The
appeal marked:SC/120/2013 was filed by the Ekiti State Government. It had
Prince Sanmi Olubunmo (Chairman of Ido Osi LG and Chairman of Association of
Local Government’s of Nigeria – ALGON, Ekiti Chapter and 13 others as
respondents. Fayemi, now Minister of Mineral Resources reportedly announced the
dissolution of the councils in a radio announcement on October 29, 2010, when
the elected council officials still had up till December 19, 2011 to end their
three-year tenure.
The
Supreme Court, in faulting the law purportedly relied on by Fayemi, held that
Section 23(b) of the Ekiti State Local Government Administration (Amendment)
Law, 2001, which empowered the governor to dissolve local government councils,
whose tenure was yet to expire, violated section 7(1) of the Constitution from
which the state House of Assembly derived the power to enact the local
government law. Justice Centus Nweze, in the lead judgment, said: “There can be
no doubt, as argued by the appellants’ counsel, that the Ekiti State House of
Assembly is empowered to make laws of Ekiti State.
“However,
the snag here is that, in enacting section 23(b) of the Ekiti State Local
Government Administration (Amendment) Law, 2001, which empowered the first
appellant to bridge the tenure of office of the respondents, it overreached
itself. “In other words, section 23(b) (supra) is violative of, and in conflict
with section 7(1) of the Constitution (supra). “Hence, it is bound to suffer
the fate of ll laws which are in conflict with the Constitution, section 1(3)
thereof.”
The
judge Said Section 7(1) of the Constitution seeks to guarantee “the system of
local government by democratically-elected local government councils and
conferred “sacrosanctity on the elections of such officials whose electoral
mandates derived from the will of the people freely exercised through the
democratic process”.
“The
implication, therefore, is that section 23(b) of thethe Ekiti State Local
Government Administration (Amendment) Law, 2001, which was not intended to
‘ensure the existence of’ such democratically-elected councils, but to snap
their continued existence by their substitution with caretaker councils, was
enacted in clear breach of the supreme provisions of section 7(1) of the
Constitution.
“To
that extent, it (section 23(b) supra) cannot co-habit with section 7(1) of the
Constitution (supra) and must, in consequence, be invalidated. “The reason is
simple. By his oath of office, the governor swore to protect and not to
supplant the Constitution.
“Hence,
any action of his which has the capacity of undermining the same Constitution
(as in the instant case where the first appellant, ‘Governor of Ekiti State and
others’ dissolved the tenure of the respondents and replaced them with
caretaker committees) is tantamount to executive recklessness which would not
be condoned,” the judge said. Justice Nweze said the the tenure of the local
government councils could not be abridged without violating the supreme
constitutional provisions.
“Simply
put, therefore, the election of such officials into their offices and their
tenure are clothed with constitutional force. They cannot, therefore, be
abridged without breaching the Constitution from which they derive their force.
“The only permissible exception, where a state governor could truncate the
lifespan of a local government council which evolved through the democratic
process of elections, is ‘for overriding public interest’ in a period of
emergency.”
He
upheld the earlier decision of the Court of Appeal on the issue and adopted the
orders made by the Court of Appeal on the case in its judgment delivered on
January 23, 2013. The Appeal Court had among others, ordered the Ekiti State
Government to compute and pay all the allowances and salaries accruable to
members of the dissolved councils between October 29, 2010 and December 19,
2011, both dates inclusive. Justice Nweze directed the Attorney- General of
Ekiti State to ensure that the orders of the lower court (Appeal Court)
affirmed in his judgment, are complied with.
Source:The Nation
Tags
Politics