3 days ago
30
By Sunday Ani
The Nigeria Association for Public Opinion Research (NAFPOR) has pleaded with the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, to refrain from making empty public statements without the necessary legal action and directives to provide the leadership bite expected of his office. The group insisted that the AGF can’t claim to appear helpless in a situation that is well within his capabilities.
“If, indeed, the illegal removal of elected council chairmen is a treasonable offence as the Attorney General has said, what steps has he taken? This is no longer time to interpret the law but time to enforce the law.
“If the Supreme Court’s declaration cannot be enforced by the IGP, then the AGF must accept responsibility for his inability to ensure enforcement,” it noted.
The group said Fagbemi has lamented enough, stressing his duty as the AGF is not to lament with the helpless masses but to bring them out of lamentations. “The AGF should understand that any declaration without actions or implementation, is not only a waste of time, but also a strategy to technically mislead Nigerians into believing that the President is genuinely fighting for local government autonomy, when in fact it is a mere lip service. How can the AGF explain that the Edo State Governor has been meeting with the President since December, despite the fact that elected chairmen have been removed illegally in Edo? Whatever discussion they had that was not about the reinstatement of the suspended chairmen was not in the best interests of the people.
“If the local government autonomy is not a political gimmick, governors who violate it would have faced the consequences. The President should direct Edo and Osun governors to immediately reinstate council chairmen or risk losing allocations. Nigerians haven’t forgotten how former President Olusegun Obasanjo illegally withheld Lagos State allocations for years while the incumbent President was Governor. The President must introduce sanctions for actions and not lip service.
“Nigerians want an action-oriented government because governors no longer respect the constitution or the judiciary. In a clime where public outcry is listened to, lack of compliance with judicial pronouncements would have been sufficient to give the AGF sleepless nights,” the group stated.
In a statement issued by the National Coordinator, Mr. Benjamin Atu, today in Lagos, in response to a comment made by Attorney General Lateef Fagbemi, who was represented by the Director of Civil Appeals in the ministry, Tijani Gazali, during the opening ceremony of an event organized by the Nigerian Bar Association in Abuja, warned against the establishment of State Police because the current actions of Edo State Governor have demonstrated that Governors will use State Police to victimize innocent citizens.
“The number of deaths in Osun State would have been a child’s play, if Edo’s elected council chairmen had taken the law into their hands to resume office. All of these constitutional crises would have been avoided by obeying the Supreme Court’s declaration of local government autonomy,” the statement said.
The group urged President Bola Tinubu and the AGF to protect Nigeria’s international image and the integrity of her democracy by instructing the Inspector General of Police to provide immediate security for all suspended elected local government chairmen in Edo and Osun states to resume office immediately, as well as impose sanctions on any governor, who violates the Supreme Court’s order granting autonomy to elected local government council chairmen.
“Local government autonomy, which would have been a five-star achievement under Bola Tinubu’s administration, is now being eroded by politicians determined to undermine his five-star legacy. The buck eventually stops at the President’s table,” the group said.
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