A chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party and an advocate for local government reforms, Chief Nnamdi Iheoma, says Nigerians can only benefit from the local government system if it is dramatically and holistically reformed to bring about an independent, functional and people-centre structure, where the citizens are free to choose LG leaders through credible elections.

Iheoma, a real estate investor who contested the September 21 local government election as the People’s Democratic Party candidate for Ikeduru LGA in Imo State, feels pained that the recent Supreme Court ruling on local government autonomy cannot work because of the overwhelming grip of governors on the local government system in Nigeria.

Iheoma told Soni Daniel in this interview that a dramatic and holistic change is urgently needed to eliminate the rot in the local government system in Nigeria and rescue the tier of government from hijackers.

What is your view of the recent Supreme Court judgment on Local Government autonomy?

Well, I would only describe it as nothing but a ‘societal excitement’ because it did not come with anything different from what it has always been. It has not changed anything because the governors are still in control of the resources of the local government and they still decide what happens and does not happen at the local government level. Even those who have rushed to ‘conduct’ election into the local government areas have made a mockery of what election should be and they get away with it.  We though that the autonomy for local governments in Nigeria would change anything but indeed, it is mere celebration of societal excitement and nothing more.

We made to believe that with autonomy, we could throw ourselves into the system and bring our wide array of experience to help drive development at the grassroots for our people but the system is not yet free to enable credible people to bring in their experience, intellect, energy and capacity to transform the local government in Nigeria.

Do you mean the local government system is still not free even with the Supreme Court ruling, which has been widely hailed as a masterpiece?

Of course, nothing has changed. If you are in doubt, go and check all the states that have so far ‘conducted’ local government elections and what you will see is that the party in power in those states win all the seats and leaves nothing for any other party. How is that possible in a democracy? What these governors have done has simply thrown our electoral process into disrepute and taken Nigeria backwards democratically.

ow do they, do it? Now the worst is that there are beginning to bring our political and electoral process into this repute. What you get in most states is an extension of some administrators by the governors of the state. In some cases, they create a problem that they can’t even solve by disrespecting their own electoral and processes.  Sand, these widespread breaches of electoral laws are not peculiar to one party. It cuts across all the parties in Nigeria and it is quite frightening the way governors are turning the table upside down all in a bid to control the local government areas in their states and continue to utilise the resources of the LG through their handpicked cronies under the guise of elections.

Do these flaws not justify the clarion calls by well meaning Nigerians that state election commissions should be abolished and that INEC should conduct all elections in Nigeria?

Of course, it justifies the call and that should be the way forward for Nigeria but the fact is that there is a provision in the constitution that gives the right to states to set up their election commissions and conduct the elections into the local government councils. But the federal government can still do something better by putting a monitoring unit, either through a presidential order or something, to monitor local government election to ensure that is it credible. But that monitoring unit should be saddled with that responsibility of doing that, except they want to change the constitution or by presidential order.

But the National Assembly is planning a different commission to handle local government elections only. Will that solve the problem?

It will be a welcomed development for the President. If they can achieve that, the President will have achieved something. Let me say something here. There is nobody in Nigeria that does not come from a local government irrespective of where he or she comes from. You are part of the 774 local government areas in Nigeria. If the local government system is made functional and robust and operates well it will serve us well. 

As a way of strengthening the local government system in Nigeria, do you think that the immunity clause which governors are currently enjoying should be removed so that they can be held liable for any infringement on the local government laws?

I would not say that because as you know, whatever rule we have, we also look at what is the good and the bad side of every law that we operate with in this country. Also look at what will be the negative side of removing that immunity clause. What would the citizens suffer if there is no governance at that level of government arising from corruption or corruption charges being levelled against the chairman of a LGA?  Will it bring about anarchy or chaos? I think we should find a way to checkmate the excesses of any LG chairman or governor instead of instantly removing them from office when indicted for corruption.  The leaders should be made to account for their stewardship.

So, my take will be to have a system where with the social media analysis, with the social media world now which is in place, we can name and shame those people who have stolen from our common purse. We need a system where people can corrupt leaders and tell them Oh, you are a thief, even though you are a governor for eight years. Let’s have a system where people can look at you in the face and say, while you were in government, you stole our money. Let’s have a system where they will tell their children, look, your father was a thief. They can tell their grandchildren your great grandfather stole from what belonged to us. Because no matter how much money you take from the system, they will all go down to six feet. And I thank God for one thing, there are three things God has kept to Himself alone. He gives us power to make wealth, to build houses, to design airplane to build computers, to do all that. But he kept the powers of life, death and power to Himself. Thus, no matter how powerful and wealthy we may appear, we have limits and we need to realise that and be humble and responsible and responsive in all our actions.

 How do you think we make LG election count in Nigeria going forward?

Just like I said earlier, the pronouncement of local government financial autonomy was just a mere hype that provided societal excitement and nothing more. I want to restate that until an independent body that is not directly and indirectly controlled by the state governor begins to conduct local government election, we are not likely to enjoy the benefits of the LG system in Nigeria.

If President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wants to enthrone a functional local government system in Nigeria, he should do all within his powers to ensure that the local government is completely taken away from the whims and caprices of the governors and given to the people at the local government level to decide who governs them.

By doing that, the federal government would you would have successfully helped the system. I ran elections in Imo state, I presented my manifesto, which is transparent and clear. You can see the end from the beginning. Every project that I integrated in my manifesto was drawn from our sustainable development growth agenda. We had a clear vision of what we wanted to do for our people. They were not dependent mostly on even revenue, because most of them can drive revenue by themselves. So, for the first time, people begin to get the idea. What they were asking me, I had a radio time talking to the people because it’s a radio station based in their locality. And what they were telling me was that they would come out and vote for me.  But they asked if I would be able to protect their votes and I thought I would. My brother I can tell you this, people came out in mass for the first time. Two blind men came to vote because they listened to me via the radio. And so people came out to vote, but unfortunately, there was no election. People were selected, and that is the height of disparity in our political system, because no matter what the governor has done, he used human beings who were there to change the will of the electorate and set us backwards in the process.  They used people to violate anything, starting from display of notice register, starting from ad hoc staff and breaching every procedure they put on the ISEC guideline, they violated those procedures. But we were still struggling with every process even at the point we went to court, to say you have not followed your guidelines, and the court did not call the case before the election came up. On election day, I had to drive from my house to the local government office of ISIEC to ask for when the materials would be released for election. I came back home waiting for the materials. Materials got to local government and about 4pm but the result sheets were not included and because the people wanted to vote, they requested for the materials to go and vote and it was becoming rowdy, and the police in the area as a way of protecting the woman who was the electoral officer in that area took her away. While we were still waiting for them to come and bring the results, they announced the results without figures. So, for me, it is something that we should examine all over Nigeria. Not just APC, or PDP.  What I’m saying is that is the Presidency really wants to enthrone local government autonomy as a way of driving development in Nigeria, there is need to interrogate the process through which local government chairman and councillors are chosen for our local government.

What lessons have you learnt from the Imo state LG election in which you participated last month?

I’m already developing something I call the ‘gullibility of the electorate’. It is a document I want to work on and build around it. I just realized that sometimes you don’t even have to blame the politicians for too long, because the electorate is very gullible, and my experience is something that I want to talk about, I want to work on, and I want to see if its something that we can use to change the narrative. The electorate is still in chain, and he’s dancing with his chains, and he’s celebrating the one that puts him in chain. That is the way to answer that, because the electorate is still thinking that the gift of N5000, N15,000 and N20,000, which is a momentary relief of the things that he’s going through, is enough to sell the fundamental right that he owns to decide his future by way of the power of his vote. So, the electorate have not really come to this clear understanding of the power of his votes. And this is a game the politician understands 100%. The politician understands this gullibility of the electorate 100% and the politicians uses it as a tool in the electoral process. No politician will do anything to the electorate until it is one month, one year to election period when they will start launching programmes of empowerment by donating fertilizers and rice. So, the gullibility of the electorate, I will say, is the fundamental that gives the politician the right. The politician Keeps his money in dollars and keeps it in his bag and locks it and wait for election day. On election day, he opens the vault and brings out $10,000 and changes it into Naira and begins to give you N10,000, N5000. And the electorate says, oh, let me collect it, I’ve been hungry. What has happened? Well, what is he collecting from you? He’s collecting your right to vote, your right to good life, your right to clean water, your right to good environment, your life. That is what is taken from you. So, until the electorate gets to that understanding that at an election period, their right is stolen, by way of my consent with over N2000 naira. So, to answer your question, the electorate has not come to terms with the realities of what the politician has done to him, and the politician has come to terms of how they can manage the electorate by their gullibility.

What would you want to be changed in the Nigerian constitution to make Nigeria better?

You see, for me, the first right we should protect is the right to choose our leaders. As a people, we must protect the right to rightly choose our leaders. But since that right is protected, whoever that we choose, we know that he derives that power from the people and that he wants to protect the people. That is why the electoral process or system must be changed to begin to ensure that the people choose their leaders by way of appointing who becomes the INEC Chairman, by way of deciding how the state’s electoral commission should run the elections, by way of ensuring punishment for electoral offenders because if you take away our right to determine who leads us, you have actually imposed on us the man who destroys us.

 I want to take you back to the elections you contested last month in Imo State last month. Did the IMO SIEC give you any number of votes you scored and that of the person they declared the winner in Ikeduru LGA of Imo State? The answer is no. As the candidate of the People’s Democratic party and the frontline candidate of the PDP in the local government election, I will say that my pain is not the fact that they said they had election, my pain is the destruction of our democratic process because you do not say I lost in an election without telling me I did not even vote for myself.