NATIONAL CONCIENCE PARTY
MOTTO: ABOLITION OF POVERTY

Date: 19th September 2008


Governor Ikedi Ohakim
Government House
Owerri
Imo State

The “Chief Servant” of Imo State
Mr. Governor, Sir

DEMAND FOR THE REPUDIATION OF THE PURPORTED EMPANELLING OF TRANSITION COMMITTEES (CHAIRPERSONS AND COUNCILORS) FOR THE 27 LOCAL GOVERNMENT COUNCILS OF IMO STATE AND AN URGENT CALL FOR THE CONDUCT OF LOCAL COUNCIL ELECTIONS INTO THE 27 LOCAL COUNCILS IN IMO STATE.

It has been brought to our notice by the members of the Imo State Chapter of the National Conscience Party (NCP), that in flagrant disregard of express provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a contraption tagged “Transition Committees” has been created by your administration to administer over the affairs of the 27 Local Government Councils in Imo State

On Wednesday, the 10th day of September 2008, your goodself ‘inaugurated’ 27 persons as Chairpersons of the Transition Committees, one for each of the 27 Local Government Councils in the State. These 27 persons were selected, in a most undemocratic manner, by so-called ‘elders/political forums’ in Imo State.

Mr. Governor, Sir, on the 29th day of May 2007, during your inauguration as Imo State Governor, you swore to an Oath of Office to promote, protect and uphold the Nigerian Constitution. The said Constitution, under which your goodself derive your authority, clearly provides in its Section 7 that: ‘the system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this Constitution guaranteed”.


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National Headquarters Annex: National Headquarters: Tel: 08023237448, 08053677825
140,New Lagos Road, 1 Yaounde Street , Website: www.nigeriancp.net
Benin City, Berger Bus Stop, E-mail: ncplegal@yahoo.com
Edo State Wuse Zone 6, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja


By no stretch of the imagination can arbitrary appointment of persons, without any recourse to the electorate in a general election, to constitute so-called ‘Transition Committees’ be deemed as ‘democratic’ as envisaged by the said Section 7 of the Nigerian Constitution. It would have likewise been an anathema to the Constitution if a Nigerian President or any authority for that matter had, without recourse to the electorate in Imo State, appointed a person to the office of ‘Transitional Governor of Imo State’.

Well over 15 months into your tenure as Governor of Imo State, your administration has neglected and or omitted to conduct elections into the 27 Local Government Councils in the State, thereby depriving the millions of Nigerians resident in these council areas of fundamental rights of participatory democracy as envisaged by the Nigerian Constitution.

In the course of the said 15 months, billions of Naira has been allocated to the said 27 Local Government Councils as part of their entitlements from the Federation Accounts. The said statutory allocations have not been duly appropriated or utilized as no duly constituted Local Government Councils exist to undertake these constitutional functions.

In your speech at the said inauguration ceremony, Mr. Governor, Sir, you enjoined the so-called ‘Transition Committee’ chairpersons not to embark on any developmental projects in their respective council areas. This is clearly an attempt to retard development in this very important third tier of Government. Imo State deserves and demands developmental projects, new and old, at all times from their Local Government Councils. Transitional Committees are however not the vehicle by which such development can ever occur.

The level of underdevelopment, waste and misadministration foisted on the said 27 Local Government Councils is thus best imagined.

From the foregoing premises, we believe we have made it crystal clear to your Office as to the blatant unconstitutionality and inherent ultra-legality of the purported inauguration of ‘Transition Committees’ to man the affairs of the 27 Local Government Councils in the State.

With the avalanche of trained legal personnel available to your Office, headed by the Imo State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, who we are made to understand is a lawyer of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria, we are really perplexed as to why the State should be allowed to descend to such depths of unconstitutionality.

Mindful of the implications of a legal and constitutional challenge of the aforedescribed anomalous situation to the generality of the people of Imo State (in terms of withholding allocations due to such unlawfully constituted Local Government Councils), but buoyed on by the fact that we will be deepening democratic percepts and ultimately benefiting the people of Imo State the more by such challenge, we do hereby give your Office Seven (7) days to rescind, abrogate, nullify and reverse the purported inauguration of Transition Committees for the 27 Local Government Councils of Imo State.

Such that if by the end of business day on Friday the 26th of September 2008 the demand stated in the immediate preceding paragraph is not complied with, we shall be at liberty to take any and all further constitutional and legal avenues to ensure the enforcement of constitutionalism and due process in local government administration in Imo State.

We also demand that democratic general elections into Local Government Councils for the said 27 Local Government Councils be conducted as soon as possible as a matter of extreme emergency, but no latter than the end of October 2008. 16 months of your governance is more than long enough to conceptualize the framework to conduct these elections.

We are of the notion that your Office might mean well for the State and was merely ill advised in your decision to inaugurate the so-called ‘Transition Committees’ and sincerely wish you will seize this opportunity to make amends.

Remain assured of our high regards

Yours truly,

Ezekwesiri Eluchie, Esq.
National Legal Adviser.