Edo APC follows trend, wins council poll in landslide- By Izuegbi Nkechi Gift

 

 

Governor of Edo state 

Recording the usual landslide victory over opposition political parties that have become the trend in local government election management in Nigeria, the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC) in Edo scored 100 percent win in last weekend’s council poll in the state.

      Last Saturday’s local council poll in Edo State, which was won, as usual with ruling parties across the country, in a landslide manner by the All Progressives Congress (APC), has once again drawn attention to the management of election at the third tier of government in Nigeria.

      As it has been the case since the commencement of the current democratic dispensation, where ruling parties always win council elections with wide margins even when a viable and credible opposition is in place, the APC won all the 18 chairmanship and 192 councillorship seats in the exercise.

       Regarded by many as a strange phenomenon that cannot occur without official manipulation to either thwart the process or hound opposition out of the race, the unusual victories of ruling parties have been identified as a ploy by politicians not only to stifle democracy at the grassroots but also to ensure total control of the funds that should belong to council administration Proponents of local council autonomy, who are mainly council workers, have argued that hijacking of council administration, either through appointments of unelected officials or by landslide victories of ruling parties, have suppressed development at the third tier of government and defeated the expectations of the constitution on the role of local governments as the closest level of government to the people.

        The stiff opposition to the autonomy by many state governors and Houses of Assembly, who have rejected the clause in the on-going constitutional amendment process, are believed to be driven mainly by the selfish factors of partisan political control and unfettered access to council fund that statutorily come from the federation accounts thereby pushing the important aspect of grassroots development to the background