A Human Right Activist and Executive Director, Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution (CHRCR), Mr Idris Miliki Abdul, has condemned in strong term the blatant refusal of Kogi state Governor Alhaji Yahaya Bello to conduct elections into the Local government councils in the last three years.
Abdul who made the observation on Tuesday in a press statement he personally signed and made available to newsmen in Lokoja lamented that since the expiration of the last democratically elected councils in May 2016 , there was no effort by the present administration to conduct election.
He stressed that the government has consistently denied the people of Kogi state from from electing their local government officials through democratic means.
According to him, “The current Assembly under the leadership of Rt. Hon Mathew Kolawole, as the Speaker of Kogi State House of Assembly, have consistently conspired with the Executive Arm of government in perpetrating illegality in respect of Local Government Administration in Kogi State, despite the fact that they were also democratically elected.
“The current extension of the illegal Administrators, was carried out on October 11th, 2018. It then means that tenure of the illegal extension expired on the 29th of March 2019.
“And yet no further extension has been carried out and yet they have remained in office illegally and illegitimately under the leadership of Rt. Hon Mathew Kolawole”
The Executive Director noted that Section 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution stated clearly that there shall be democratically elected local government councils in Nigeria, adding that both the High Courts in the state and the Supreme Court of Nigeria, have pronounced that caretaker or any other nomenclature other than a democratically elected council, is illegal.
“Also, in the 5th Assembly in Kogi State, under the Leadership of Rt. Hon. Abdullahi Bello, a resolution was passed affirming the provisions of the Constitution that Caretakership at Local Government Council in the state was illegal.
“We therefore call for either the sack of the entire Administrators by the Kogi State Assembly under the Speakership of Rt. Hon Mathew Kolawole or the House should compel the governor to conduct election for the councils” he advised.
