Pursuant to the recent Supreme Court verdict mandating allocation of funds due to the Local Government Areas, LGAs, directly to them to enhance their “autonomy”, greater attention of Nigerians is turning to them as serious units of grass-roots governance.

That verdict holds that LGAs that are under the unconstitutional “caretaker committees” set up by some state governors would no longer be allowed to receive federal allocations. Only elected Local Councils can now do so. As a result, states which are still harbouring “caretaker committees” are now hurrying to conduct local government elections.

The problem, however, is that these elections are still being conducted by the State Independent Electoral Commission, SIECs, whose chief operatives were appointed by governors. These SIECs have failed to produce genuine democratic elections since they were created by the 1999 Constitution. They have always invariably produced wholesale victories for the political parties of incumbent governors.

They have made a mockery of democracy. The tag of “independence” on their names is a mere travesty of the word because they have become the means by which the parties in power in every state establish their absolute dominance at the grass-roots.

The pro-local government autonomy advocates are now agitating for the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, which is constitutionally empowered to conduct federal and state elections, to also be saddled with the task of handling the Local Government elections. Indeed, the outgoing chairman of the INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has volunteered that his commission is capable of taking on the task.

The INEC already has its Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, in all 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. It also has offices in all 774 Local Government Areas. All it needs is a little tweak, and the LGAs can comfortably come into its basket of electoral jurisdiction.

While this putative arrangement is capable of producing a much better result than what obtains with the SIECs, it still has its own possible disadvantages. A President who is interested in capturing the grass-roots of any or all states could use the INEC to achieve that purpose. It could be used to destabilise states under opposition governors or parties. This can undermine our federalism.

It is not ideal for a national body to conduct elections for the grass-roots administrative units in a federation. Indeed, it is the state or regional electoral umpires that handle the conduct of even national elections.

The only solution is for us as a nation to evolve a method of insulating the electoral umpires from partisan politics and direct control of politicians. We must make our electoral umpires truly independent by ensuring that the appointment of their officials is removed from the control of political contestants.

Players in any sport should never be allowed to appoint the referees!