Stop Imposition In Yakurr LGA. By Wilfred Okoi

By Wilfred Okoi

Today, the local government enjoys financial  autonomy that successive state administrations had denied them. By this development, it should now operate separately,  Independent of the control of state government abide.

The local government ought to exist , not as an appendage of the state government but as an autonomous entity in the sense of being able to exercise its own will on the conduct of its affairs free from direction by the governor.

How genuine, free and fair election process will fix the States including corruption.

First we need to understand that the major root cause of the problems including corruption we have in the states  today is caused by one party system and  over lording of political and economical powers to the head of the governor. This is an important point to note. It is run like a military regime where the governor does everything and decides for everyone. This is wrong.

For instance, in the US , economic power and political powers are devolved down to the communities. Every tier of government has responsibility and authority over its domain. In Nigeria, not until the grant of financial autonomy to councils, the governors control the allocations of the local government. The implication of this is that the governor decides how economically our communities should develop. This is wrong.

The local government should have a certain control over the most basic things that affects the people. The rural communities should have a say in project selection, budget planning and implementation. The local government should have a firm control over the basic schools, health centers and other public services in their domain. Once we are able enjoy genuine, free and fair elections, and the councils continue to enjoy the financial autonomy that has been granted them , corruption will find its place as this new system will bring in transparency, accountability and progress as against what was obtainable in the past.

Few days ago , i made a publication in which i posited that one of the major problem with Cross River State is one party system,  godfatherism and imposition of candidates. The PDP had been in the saddle of power since 1999 snd if there is no opposition there will be no economic progress. The point is that governor Ben Ayade and the PDP are actually not the problem of the state. The problem is the defective system which had before put the governor in control of allocations accruing to the councils and by implication allows him to decide the economic well-being of these areas.

It would worry you that it took strong agitations,court actions and pressure from the Federal Government for the governor to finally agree to conduct local government elections in the state. And, when the party primaries where conducted it was characterized by imposition of candidates which eventually led to widespread protests in the state.Well, there is always a problem of political will to get things done rightly. We must continue to make our points clear irrespective of whatever our detractors might say.

If you have studied the Constitution of the PDP and APC , will observe that to conduct genuine,free and fair primaries election and entrench internal democracy is among the various provisions in these documents. This is 2020 , has the party(ies) demonstrated the political will to achieve that? Will they? I doubt. These are the issues with political leaders. They are good at using people and ideologies to get to power.

This is why we as ordinary citizens must develop our own strategies to drive the campaign against godfatherism and imposition without relying on political parties. We are not disturb that some individuals might be making a case against this on a hypocritical ground. We In fact want the March 28 elections in Cross River to be on the basis of freedom and fairness. I would like to see an opposition party winning some councils. The 2015 general elections was based on anti-corruption, let the Cross River local council elections of March 28 be based on