A bill seeking to increase the tenure of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) area council chairmen from three to four years may be passed into law before the February 2022 council elections.
House of Representatives member representing Abaji/Kwali/Gwagwalada/Kuje Federal Constituency of the FCT, Alhaji AlHassan Sokodabo, explained that the initiative was conceived to provide functionaries at the third tier of government enough time for service delivery.
He stated that the bill also seeks to harmonise the period of electing political leaders at the council levels with those of the National Assembly elections to ease the burden that the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] faces preparing and conducting area council elections after federal polls.
“We are working at the National Assembly to increase the tenure of area council chairmen from three to four years, so that they will not continue to complain about shortage of time to provide dividends of democracy to our people.
“Even the timetable for the elections which comes up after other federal elections will be harmonised to fall on the same period as our own election date,” the parliamentarian disclosed.
Alhaji AlHassan Sokodabo made the revelation while interacting with newsmen in Abaji during the just concluded Eid-el-Kabir holidays.
He also commended the position of the Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] lawmakers on the controversial electoral bill amendment especially as it affects the electronic transmission of results, adding that the position of the party on the matter was endorsed by every representative of the PDP at the National Assembly.
Sokodabo appealed to the three tiers of government to review the nation’s obsolete environmental laws to ensure that culverts when cleared of waste matters and sand, which stops free passage of water, the materials should be removed to prevent them from returning back into the gutters.
“It is only in Nigerian that people will be paid to clear waste matter from culverts and the materials removed will be left at the mouth or edge of the gutters where, within a short time, the waste matter will go back into the gutter which was cleared,” he said.
