Most people are upbeat about the recent decision of the Supreme Court ruling declaring the state/local governments Joint account as illegal, and therefore stopped its operation henceforth. The ruling gives direct funding back to the local governments from the Federation Account, meaning that the state governments could not directly withdraw any money from the fund belonging to the local governments.

The governor could ask the local government chairmen in his state to ‘assist’ him or someone else with some amount of money whenever he so wished, as happened before the domestication of the joint account into the Nigerian Constitution.

For me however, the ruling is more significant because of the abolishment of the State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC), transferring the power to conduct the local government elections to the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC).

 Although the gubernatorial candidates promise to give the local governments their financial autonomy each time they are on the campaign trail, they never do so when they become governors, up to the time they will leave office and become either Senators or ordinary citizens.

Therefore, the responsibility for INEC to conduct the local government elections means that the state governors are stripped of the power to anoint the chairman of any area they so wish, since the ruling party in every state appear to win almost everything, except where the governor is a little ‘generous’ to allocate a few seats, which might include the home local government of the chairman of the main opposition party in the state.

There was a chairman of SIEC in one of the states in the north west who REFUSED to announce the ‘result’ of local government elections given to him by the governor, because the ruling party had performed woefully. He refused to announce the results given to him, saying that it was immoral to announce the party that lost the elections as the winner.

The chairman walked away from the job, and the secretary of the commission was ordered to announce the ‘false’ result, which he did with alacrity, given that he had all the time wanted to be the chairman.

Of course, the participation of INEC in the conduct of elections does not prevent most first term governors from ‘winning’ their reelection, despite, in actual fact, losing at the polls. This however, pales in significance to the absurdity that the governors call local government election. They hardly lose in that travesty of justice, no matter how woeful their political party performed during the election.

During the joint account, most of the rich politicians are former governors in their respective states, implying that they became that wealthy on account of controlling the state and local governments budgets, into which they occasionally ‘dipped’ their fingers for their own benefit.

However, the Supreme Court ruling would also mean that Nigeria would be back to the era when ranking local government officials, notably the chairmen, the treasurers and the cashiers, become ‘winners’ of pools at the end of every month. They were indeed winners of the pools, except that this is not the weekend football pools, but a pool belonging to the local government Commonwealth.

It would also witness the return of the era when local government cashiers would prefer to remain on that seat indefinitely, rather than be promoted to the next rank, which is the assistant treasurer. The reason being that the assistant treasurer in local governments is more or less redundant, while the cashier is always relevant because it is his job to go to the bank for withdrawals or deposits. It was withdrawals most of the times.

In some local government areas, the cashier became so rich that whatever was offered for sale he would snap it up. Be it a house, a plot of land or a farmland. He was also the owner of all sorts of businesses like, farming, rearing of large and small animals, poultry and the rest of them. He was all the time consulted as a ‘big man’, who had also ‘arrived’ to the ranks of the moneyed people. In yet other areas, the cashier even gave the vice treasurer the spending money when he requested for it.

But majority of the times, most of the ‘riches’ disappear from them the moment they stopped being cashiers, unless they are made treasurers in the local government within the state. No one abuses his office or betrays the trust entrusted to him and lives happily there after.

May Allah provide us with what truly belongs to us, without resort to illegalities.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Abuja.