4th April, 2013
Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has threatened to ensure that the planned tenure extension for chairmen of local government councils and councillors in Lagos state, southwest Nigeria, does not see the light of day.
Falana, in a statement protesting the alleged plans by the Lagos State House of Assembly to extend the tenure of council chairmen on Wednesday, threatened a suit against the state governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, and the House if the latter passes a proposed bill that has the clause.
The House is currently considering the Local Government Amendment Bill 2013 that is aimed at consolidating all the laws concerning local government administration in the state.
The bill reportedly has a proposal for the extension of tenure for political office holders at the third tier of government.
“If the dangerous bill is passed by the House and signed into law by Governor Raji Fashola, SAN, we shall not hesitate to challenge its legal validity in court without any further notice,” Falana declared.
According to Mr. Falana, the bill seeks to elongate the tenure of the current chairmen and councillors from three to six years.
“The proposal is illegal in every material particular. It has to be withdrawn or struck down in the overall interest of the people of Lagos state who are due to participate in fresh local government election in October 2013.
“As the chairmen and councillors were elected in October 2010 for a fixed period of three years, their term of office will expire in October 2013 by effluxion of time.
“Therefore, an amendment of the Lagos State Local Government Law, 2001 under which they were elected cannot extend their tenure from three to six years under any guise,” Falana warned.
The Lagos-based lawyer said though he recognised that the House of Assembly of each state of the federation is vested with the powers to make laws for the local governments in the state by virtue of Section 7 of the constitution, in exercise of such legislative powers, the House of Assembly “cannot enact laws with retrospective effect in a way that accrued rights of the people are abrogated.
“In this regard, the constitutional rights of the people of Lagos state to take part in periodic elections of not more than three years to elect chairmen and councillors cannot be extinguished by the House of Assembly.”
He said even if the Local Government Law was amended to provide for a four-year tenure for chairmen and councilors, the current council chairmen and councillors whose term of office is three years must not enjoy it.
“In the circumstances, we are compelled to draw the attention of the members of the Lagos State House of Assembly to the case of Attorney-General of Abia State & 35 Ors V Attorney-General of the Federation (2001) 17 WRN 1 wherein the Supreme Court held that even though the chairmen and councillors of local government councils throughout the country were elected under Decree no 38 of 1998 which had been repealed, their three-year tenure could not be extended or prolonged by any law enacted by the National Assembly.
“In the same vein, the three-year tenure of chairmen and councillors fixed by the Lagos state LG Law, 2001 cannot be elongated by any amendment whatsoever and howsoever.
“It is pertinent to remind the members of the Lagos State House of Assembly that their predecessors unanimously kicked against the tenure elongation of President Olusegun Obasanjo through a fraudulent constitutional amendment,” he recalled while warning the state lawmakers against setting a dangerous precedence by engaging in “the illegal extension of elected chairmen and councillors in Lagos state.”
He warned that if the tenure of the local government chairmen and councillors in the state was extended through an “anomalous” amendment of the Local Government Law, all other public officers in Nigeria who were elected through the 2011 general elections might also want to take advantage of the proposed amendment of the constitution to elongate their tenure to 2019 without contesting any election in 2015.
“In the light of the foregoing, we urge the members of the Lagos State House of Assembly to jettison the proposed elongation of the tenure of chairmen and councillors of local government councils in Lagos state forthwith,” the lawyer cautioned.
—Eromosele Ebhomele