A former governor of Ogun State, Segun Osoba has said that there has to be a total change in the country’s political dynamics for federalism to be effective in Nigeria.
He insisted that it is undemocratic for governors to use their political powers to place their party men as chairmen of all local governments in their states.
The 84-year-old elder statesman shared his thoughts during an interview with Channels Television on Friday.
He said, “If you look at how we conduct our local government elections, I am very unhappy. Virtually, any government in power will claim 100% success in our local government elections.
“It is painful that when local government elections are conducted at the state level, each state will be scoring 100% and when it comes to general elections, those who are scoring 100% in their states either lose the general elections or struggle to survive; it doesn’t speak well of the current democratic system.”
The APC chieftain’s comment is coming after the Supreme Court granted financial autonomy to the third tier of government, directing the Federal Government to pay the 20.60% monthly allocation of the 774 LGs in the country directly to their exclusive accounts and not to accounts controlled by governors.
However, Osoba argued that true autonomy of the local government will only come in free and fair elections where governors have no power to coronate LG chairmen.
“I am not happy. The party discipline is not as strong as it should be. I have been preaching direct primaries all my life, not delegates, because in the case of delegates, it is the highest bidder. We all know this…but with direct primaries with registered (party) members, there will be less corruption,” he added.