By Hammed Salawu, Minna
The Niger State youths have berated the State House of Assembly for its malicious dissolution of local government administration in the state.
This was sequel to the insistence of the House that elected council officials should have their tenure slashed to two years instead of the mandatory three years in the constitution.
ROYAL NEWS reports that a New Bussa State High Court had ruled that the House lacked the powers to abrogate the tenure of the local government from three years to two years.
Smarting from the loss at the court, the House hurriedly set up a committee to investigate the performance of the 25 council areas in the state and churned out a negative conclusion within five days indicting the council areas, leading to their dissolution.
The youth disclosed yesterday in a joint press briefing by the Joint Civil/Rights Society of Niger stastagte, noting that the assembly members committed the same offence haven received tonnes of millions of naira for their constituency allowances with nothing tangible to show for it.
Briefing journalists in Minna, the President and Convener of Youth Lead Nigeria, Comrade Mohammed Umar Etsu urged the state Governor to receive the house advise with an open mind and order for a through review of the house report and resolutiont before making judgment.
Etsu stated that the status quo must be maintained until further judicial pronouncement is made as only such would calm the already created tension in the state just as the house of assembly used all sort of means created by the Constitution to nail the councils who also have same constitutional powers that created them.
He said that instead of the assembly embarking on those aspects of their mandates that will have direct impact on the lives of an ordinary citizens like passing of appropriation bill, constitutional amendment bills, independent candidature bill only passed too young to run bill while busy using the institution maliciously for selfish interests.
“”The hurriedly packaged reports which was done within 5days to coincide with their predetermined 2 years in office of the local councils speaks more of malice and a hatchet job than an effort to right a wrong” he stated.
It could be recalled that last week a High Court sitting in New Bussa has ruled against the Niger state government and its state assembly in the suit filed by the Social Democratic Party 14 other registered political parties , and 5 local government councilors over the reduction of the tenure of local governments in state.
The presided judge Justice Mohammed Mohammed however ruled that the state house of assembly in particular lacked the power to amend the local government (amendment ) law 2016 of Niger state published as Niger legal notice No1 as it did to which Governor Abubakar Sani Bello appended his signature to make it become law.
