…Caution Against State Police
…Says LG Autonomy, Tinubu’s 5-Star Achievement Has Been Eroded
The Nigeria Association for Public Opinion Research (NAFPOR) has pleaded with the Attorney General and Minister for 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 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 Autonomy 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 declaration cannot be enforced by the IGP, then the AGF must accept responsibility for his inability to ensure enforcement.”
According to them, Lateef Fagbemi has lamented enough. The duty of AGF is not to lamented with the helpless masses but to bring them out of Lamentations. The AGF should understand that any declaration without actions/implementation is not only a waste of time, but also a strategy to technically mislead Nigerians into believing that Mr. President is genuinely fighting for local government autonomy, when in fact it is a mere lip service. How can the AGF explain that Edo State Governor has been meeting with the President since December, despite the fact that elected Chairmen have been removed illegally? Whatever discussion they had that was not about the reinstatement of suspended chairmen was not in the best interests of the people.
NAFPOR maintained that “If the local government autonomy is not a political gimmick, Governors who violate it would have face 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 sanction 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, the lack of compliance with judicial pronouncements would have been sufficient to give the AGF a sleepless nights.”
The Research Institution, 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 Nigeria 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 own hands to resume office. All of these constitutional crises would have been avoided by abiding by supreme Court declaration of Local Government Autonomy.
The group urged President Bola Tinubu and the Attorney General of the Federation to protect Nigeria’s international image and the integrity of our democracy by instructing the Inspector General of Police to provide immediate security for all suspended elected local government Council Chairmen in Edo and Osun States to resume office immediately, as well as imposing sanctions on any Governor who violates supreme Court order that granted autonomy to elected local government Council Chairmen.
“Local Government Council autonomy, which would have been a five-star achievement under Bola Tinubu’s administration, is now being eroded by politicians determined to undermine Tinubu’s five-star legacy. The buck eventually stopped at the President’s table”, they said.
Benjamin Atu
National Co-ordinator NAFPOR
20th February, 2025.
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