By Perpetua Onuegbu
Mr Samson Itodo, Executive Director, YIAGA Africa, an NGO has advocated the strengthening of state electoral commissions through legislations after the Supreme Court ruled on financial autonomy to the tier of government.
He said such legislation would enhance the operations of the local government system and make the sector help engender grassroots development.
Itodo said this known during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja.
According to him, the financial autonomy for local governments judgement was a watershed in the country’s political development which must be used to strengthen the sector.
He commended President Bola Tinubu and the Supreme Court for rising to the occasion through the judgement.
“But there has to be immediate action to conduct the elections in the affected areas, so that states, where you don’t have democratically elected local government chairmen will have them.
“We need to accelerate the process of implementation. This should be done as fast as possible so that those with the caretaker committees would not be denied funding’’, he said.
Itodo added that the decision would affect governance at the local government level because the ruling was unambiguous.
“When you don’t have democratically elected local government council, the Federal Government is not obliged to transfer the funds to those local councils.
“I totally agree with the Supreme Court so what needs to happen, is that the governors need to be compelled by virtue of this ruling, to conduct local government elections”, he said.
The Yiaga Africa chief executive also urged members of the public to hold their representatives at the local government level accountable.
“Federal government on its part needs to be open to the people. If any local government has been allocated any amount, the people should track the actives of the council to the development of the grassroots,” he said.
NEWS AGENCY OF NIGERIA