To dub the Supreme Court judgment granting full autonomy to the Local Governments as a reset of Nigeria’s democratic order may not be far- fetched.
Men of independent means who were not beholden to other political office holders used the credibility they had within their constituencies to achieve their political goals. The outcome of the local government election showed that the PDP which was reportedly favoured by the top- echelons of the outgoing military regime proved itself to be the dominant party forcing some political movements.
Where they did not manipulate the elections to favour their surrogates, the governors were accused of upturning democratic tenets as enshrined in Section 7 of the constitution by appointing local government caretaker chairmen. The Supreme Court’s decision of July 11 was primarily directed at freeing the funds of the local governments from governors.