During an interview in Abuja on Monday, former House of Representatives member, Sam Onuigbo, urged the National Assembly to transfer the responsibility of conducting local government elections from State Electoral Commissions to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).<\/p>\n
Onuigbo, who previously represented the Ikwuano\/Umuahia North and South federal constituency at the Ninth National Assembly, made this call amidst the ongoing Review of the 1999 Constitution by the National Assembly.<\/p>\n
Prominent figures such as former governors Adams Oshiomhole of Edo and Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna, alongside rights activists like Shehu Sani, have echoed similar sentiments, advocating for reforms that would grant local governments true independence.<\/p>\n
The Green Chamber, on February 26, established a six-member committee to oversee the constitutional review process. House Speaker Tajudeen Abass pledged that this initiative would rectify the deficiencies of the current constitution, which was drafted during the military regime’s twilight.<\/p>\n
Onuigbo emphasized that transferring the authority to conduct local government elections to INEC could curb manipulation by state governors, who often exert undue influence over the process in favor of their parties.<\/p>\n
He argued, “It is the party at the Government House that wins all the elections; so that is a problem. So I say that we have to take out (state independent electoral commissions) or let INEC conduct the election so that we can have some balance\u2026 to have some competitive spirit.”<\/p>\n
In addition to electoral reforms, Onuigbo stressed the importance of ensuring genuine autonomy for local governments, particularly in managing their financial resources. He believes that empowering local governments with greater control over their finances could result in improved infrastructure and better delivery of democratic dividends.<\/p>\n
Onuigbo, who championed the Climate Change Bill signed into law by former President Muhammadu Buhari, also highlighted the significance of local government involvement in climate change mitigation efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During an interview in Abuja on Monday, former House of Representatives member, Sam Onuigbo, urged the National Assembly to transfer the responsibility of conducting local government elections from State Electoral Commissions to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Onuigbo, who previously represented the Ikwuano\/Umuahia North and South federal constituency at the Ninth National Assembly, made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":31128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31125"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31145,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31125\/revisions\/31145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}