By Jude Atupulazi
Last Thursday morning, two days to the Local Council Polls held in Anambra State last Saturday, I was at a motor park with a view to finding my way to my office, when one of the drivers at the park who is my friend walked up to me and asked if the LG Polls were still going to be held. I told him yes and asked why he was posing the question.
He said he had not seen any signs that the polls would hold, having not seen the campaign posters of anyone or billboards. I smiled and told him the elections would hold and that he should not bother looking for posters or billboards as the supposed elections were just selections, rather. He then said he was not going to vote for the sole Candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA in his ward, even though the result was a foregone conclusion. He was furious that the people would not be allowed to choose whom they wanted as the ruling party (APGA) had decided to eliminate the opposition.
Well, my friend’s frustration is also the frustration of opposing parties who stayed out of last Saturday’s Council Elections. They knew that contesting would be a waste of money, time and resources as the ruling party had already determined the winners. Indeed, even before the results were released, I knew, and most people knew, that all the Local Government Chairmanship Candidates of APGA would be declared winners, including the Councillorship Candidates.
If the ruling party wanted to be generous, they could just allow one or two councillorship seats to be ”taken” by the opposition as was once the case in this state years ago.
As it were, only one political party outside APGA had participated in the last LG Polls. That party was the Young Progressives Party, YPP. It only fielded a Candidate in Anambra East, who, perhaps, was only a Councillorship Aspirant. No ”sane” person would have risked their money to contest a sham election that they were never going to win.
But if you think this practice of winner-takes-all is peculiar to Anambra State, you will be very wrong. It is something that obtains throughout the country. Ruling parties appropriate all the positions and leave the opposition with nothing. This is because the electoral bodies’ officials are set up and funded by state governments and dictated to.
In the past, there used to be opposition Candidates in Anambra but after failing many times they have learnt to stay away and use their money for better pursuits.
As I stated, this is not peculiar to Anambra. From Lagos to Kano, from Rivers to Benue, the script is identical. State governors, through SIECs (State Independent Electoral Commissions) they appoint and fund, conduct elections where the opposition barely campaigns, results are announced before voting ends, and “victory” always returns to the party in Government House. This was what happened on Saturday in Anambra.
It is however much different with national elections. Though the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is funded by the Federal Government, the chances of opposition parties winning are much higher. The only difference is often the Presidential Election where the party in power at the centre manipulates results with INEC’s collaboration.
Thus, in past elections in Nigeria, while the centre is taken by the party in power, the scenario in various states is different. That is why we usually have many state governors who are from opposition parties, as well as state and national assembly members.
But the scenario in state organised elections is going to continue happening and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. The local governments have become conduit pipes through which state governments siphon money despite the much talked about autonomy of local governments. State governors still appoint local government Chairmen in transition arrangements and in main elections they produce Candidates they could trust. This way, the governors still appropriate local government funds, although, unlike in transition arrangement, the Chairmen and Councillors are paid more. This is why state organised elections will always be a sham.
The Way Forward
The scam will continue until three things change:
First, True SIEC Independence – Either scrap SIECs and let INEC conduct LG polls, or constitutionally guarantee SIEC funding and tenure outside the governors’ control.
Second, Financial Autonomy – LGs must get their FAAC allocations directly, not through the state Joint Account. A Chairman who controls no money will always be a stooge.
Third, Citizen Pressure – voters, CSOs, and the media must treat LG polls as seriously as Governorship Polls. They should document irregularities, reject 100% sweeps.
Until then, Local Government Elections like the ones witnessed in last Saturday’s Anambra LG Election will be less an election and more a ceremony. The ballot boxes will be opened, but the decision was made long before in Government House.
Democracy that does not exist at the local level does not exist at all. And right now, at the local level in Nigeria, democracy is mostly a scam.
Still on the second Anambra Airport
I have continued to read angry reactions by people to the second airport being built by the Anambra State Government in Ndikelionwu and the more I read them, the more I become infuriated. It seems as if the State Government is taking the people of the state for fools. When I remember how the government frantically and vehemently denied initial rumours of building a second airport, only to later admit it was true, I get this feeling that they consider us fools.
There is absolutely no justification for another airport in Anambra when the first one is still having all manner of problems that are not looking like they will be solved any time soon. Now, another airport is being built at what must be great cost, gulping money that would have been used to develop other sectors.
On the morning of writing this piece, I passed through the back of Amaku General Hospital and the road was in terrible condition with gaping potholes that are threatening to become craters. There are many such roads in most places and the money for the second airport should have been used to address them.
Indeed, after starting on a promising note in Awka by constructing or reconstructing some roads in the city, there seems to have been a pause by the state government and this pause has lasted for over two years now. Some of the roads the government used caterpillars to unearth have remained untouched and they have become very bad. Yet, the government believes it is better to embark on another airport which will even not touch the common man directly.
But the harm is done. Now that the Government has admitted building the airport, they should be answering these questions: how much is it costing? This is important against the background of the suspicion that governments often embark on such projects to siphon money.
We need to know the cost so that we will be able to compare notes and pass intelligent judgements. They should not just go ahead and blank us out as though it is not our taxes being used to finance it.
Again, the government should tell us the reason they initially denied building a second airport when a state like Abia is yet to even have one. We should know. Government is supposed to be accountable to the people. If they don’t answer these questions then anyone who thinks the government has ulterior motives will be right.
Stiffer Penalties for Ritual Killers
Recently I read that a young man in one Southeast state was told by a native doctor to bury his mother alive. He did it. This story is among several others that we have been reading and hearing. Had he succeeded, he may have become the next big boy in town, driving big cars, even with police escort.
Musicians would have been singing his name and his community would have given him a chieftaincy title which is what many young men crave for these days. He would have stormed his local church in December during its bazaar to buy up everything to the applause of all. That is the level we have reached in our society.
And when they do all these things, other young men want to be like them. The next time, they will be consulting native doctors to make them become big boys. This is indeed one of the best things the Anambra State Governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, has done: going after fraudsters posing as native doctors and pastors.
I urge that government should go a step further by decreeing the death penalty for ritual killers and the native doctors that deceive them. The Yahoo business should also attract stiffer penalties like life imprisonment.
Those who throw money about at public functions should be arrested and questioned and if this is done, I tell you that seven out of ten of such people will be found to be into shady business. No one who makes their money honestly will have the mind to waste it that way.
As for the traditional institution, there should be an age limit for those wishing to take traditional titles. Today, young men under forty have become chiefs as long as they have money and many of them made the money dubiously. Left to me, nobody less than fifty-five should be made a Chief or Ozo. In years past, titled men were respected because they were of the right age. It is no longer so.
Society does not need these people because they are a menace to it and the earlier we declare a total war against them the better for all of us.
