Chairmen and other elected officials of local governments in Lagos State are now to enjoy four-year tenure as against three.
This new tenure structure brings elected council officials at par with their counterparts at the state level, including governor, deputy, and speaker and members of House of Assembly.
Governor Akinwunmi Ambode signed a law giving effect to this on Thursday. It had earlier been passed by the Lagos State House of Assembly, titled ‘Local government administration amendment law.’
“One of the major highlights of this amendment is the increase of the tenure of the chairman and the counsellors from three years to four years commencing from the date of taking oath of office.
“The amendment is also proactive as Section 64 now provides that incumbent chairman who wins a re-run election will have a period spent in office prior to the re-run taken into consideration,” Ambode said, after appending his signature to the amendment.
Also signed by the governor into law is the second amendment to the law establishing the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC), which now extends period hearing of election cases at tribunal from 30 days to 45 days.
“The LASIEC amendment law seeks to create the commission to regulate election matters. The need to amend the law arose as a result of current trend in the political space to prevent a lacuna in certain instances.
“By the assent of these bills into law, LASIEC is empowered to commence necessary administrative processes that will translate to the composition of the local government structure,” he said.
Speaking further on the local administration amendment law, the governor said its essence was to regulate human conduct, saying that upon his assumption of office, his administration identified the need to improve on laws that impacted on people’s lives, “particularly that are relevant to us at the local government level which is unarguably the most critical level of governance in the state. It is in this vein, that these laws have been amended to meet current realities.
“Some of the highlights of the amendment include the empowering of the commission to review the de-alienation of wards in each Local government of the state at intervals of every 10 years and division of each local government into not less than 10 wards and not more than 20 wards,” he said.
