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    Monday, September 2, 2013

    THOSE AGITAING FOR CHILD MARRIAGE SHOULD HAVE THEIR HEADS EXAMINED -Hodewu Suru Avoseh


    The contentious issue of child marriage has attracted comments from all and sundry and it seems the consensus is that it is absurd. For Hon. Hodewu Suru Avoseh, who represents Badagry Constituency 2 in the Lagos State House of Assembly, the proponents of the matter should have their heads examined to know if they are mentally sound.
    Avoseh also kicked against autonomy for local governments, arguing that local government chairmen would mis-manage their federal allocations if they are not supervised by the state governments, adding that the Nigerian constitution should be re-written totally to make it people-oriented.
    The Chairman, House Committee on Health Services, spoke with Oladipupo Awojobi on these and other issues recently.

    There is an agitation that local governments in Nigeria should be autonomous, in view of the prevailing circumstances, as a lawmaker would you support such a move
    The situation we found ourselves now is unfortunate, the reason being that people need to know the source of what they are agitating for. Local governments are creation of states governments as approved by the constitution, so the Federal Government has no input in them, so how will they control what they have no input in and what you didn’t create. Those, who are agitating for local government autonomy shouldn’t have agitated for that. This problem is coming up because we have failed ourselves due to the type of government we are running, the type of government we have. Our failure to adopt true federalism is too bad. Local government autonomy is not the answer to the problem we are facing in Nigeria now. True federalism is the agitation we should be making now because once we have that either to still have state governments or regional governments, then we will make much progress. We should take more power from the centre to the states or regions and each region or state would know how to govern itself with the resources it gets from resource control. It will be absurd and awkward to remove local governments from the control of the state governments and transfer it to the National Assembly. Look at my local government in Badagry in Lagos or the local government in Enugu or in Sokoto for instance, how will people stay in Abuja and know their problems. We have muddled up everything, which is the problem we created for ourselves. The agitation should not be for local governments autonomy, but true for federalism so that more power would be given to the states or regions. If you remember prior to 2002, when the allocations were going directly to local governments, many council chairmen spent their allocations anyhow because there was no immediate supervision. Now, we have the control of the states on the local governments and it is better, they have not been able to solve their problems at the Federal level and they are talking about local governments. What I am saying is not because I am a legislator, but I am saying it due to what I know. There is no way they could give autonomy to local governments and ask the states to create local governments, it means creation of local governments would be taken away form the states.

    If you look at it, one of the issues is that local governments are saying that state governments abuse allocations meant for the LGs given to them by the Federal Government. Also, when Lagos State created local governments years back, they were not approved by the Federal Government, so will you say the state still has power to create local governments
    On the abuse of allocations, in our own case in Lagos State, it is never done; the refusal of the National Assembly to approve the creation of 37 additional local governments gave us problem. We have to share the allocation given for the 20 constitutionally recognized local governments amongst the 20 LGs and 37 LCDAs.  Some local governments’ chairmen are liars, when allocation comes; they have about three indoor meetings on it. So, what accrue to them and what they announced are different. What they are trying to say is that if the power given to the state to control them is removed, they would do whatever they like and how many times will the Federal Government have the opportunity to go and see what they are doing there in the local councils.

    So, what would be the implication of the autonomy if it is granted
    One, it would be more abused than we are seeing now since the states houses of assembly would not have control over the local governments anymore. Despite the control  we have over them, there are abuses from the councils, and now that we want to transfer the control to Abuja, they would be free to do whatever they like, it would be after their tenure that people would know what they are doing. My fears are for the civil servants in the local governments, they don’t know what is involved in local government autonomy. They would suffer most, before 2002, while they were being paid by the councils directly, were their salaries paid regularly, that was why the states were asked to take over and pay teachers’ salaries at source and give to the teachers, since then the salaries of primary school teachers are being paid regularly. There are so many things involved so, we should not be deceived that the agitation is in the best interest of Nigeria or the people. The local government is the closest to the people of the grassroots, but there are some things people do not understand and in Nigeria, when there are agitations like this, people would be lobbied without being told what is really involved.
    As I said earlier, local governments are creations of the state governments, the Federal Government cannot create councils unless they adjust the constitution for that purpose and take it away from the states, we will see how that will be possible without creating more problems in the country.

    Another issue is that States Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs)would be scrapped and their functions taken over by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) in the local governments as they say states governments manipulate LG elections, how do you see that

    To me, we are just creating more problems in the sense that as a person, I am not a believer in local government autonomy, I am a believer in writing a new constitution that will be called people’s constitution. Depending on the method we want to adopt, those of us elected as legislators in the states and federal levels can sit down and write a new constitution to address our problems. Our problems are not the issue of local government autonomy or removal of immunity for the president or governors, our problems lie in the constitution. The constitution we are operating is not our making, I didn’t have any input, our people did not have any input in it, what is not your making, our do you amend it. Someone analysed it that a brand new car that was bought two months ago has an accident today and you take it a panel beater to work on, after a week, it has another one, and you take it to the panel beater again. Later, it has another accident and you still take it for repairs, will the car still continue to have values, instead of panel beating it, just go and buy a new car to save cost and time wasting, that is what we are doing with our constitution. That is why I said I am not a believer in the constitutional amendment, it is better for us to sit down and write a new constitution. The one we have now would still be in operation until the new one that we all sit down to formulate comes out so that we will know the type of government we want if it is going to be parliamentary or presidential, everyone of us would agree on it, how do we want our federalism to be, do we want true federalism. The generality of Nigerians know true federalism is what we want as it would give more powers to the states or regions. By the time we come up with that, we will know what we really want about autonomy, immunity clauses and SIECs, but  we have left what we need to do and we are doing what we are not supposed to do, it is better for us to start doing a new thing instead of wasting our time.

    There have been agitations about the issue of child marriage as our constitution says that any married person should be regarded as a woman regardless of the age, would you support that a child should be married out to a man
    The question here should have been who is a child. A child is someone that cannot decide on his or her own what is right or wrong, atimes he/she might decide on what is right based on his/her inexperience and he would make a decision that is totally wrong. By the time someone is 18 years, he/she is regarded as matured, he/she can be sued or sue someone to a court of law. If child marriage is allowed, it means a child of nine years of age can be sued for any act he or she commits, it means a girl or boy of five years can be sued for his or her offence. So, we need to think beyond the issue of marriage, when talking about child marriage, marriage is just one aspect of the act of a child. The senses of those agitating for it should be tested to see if they are really human beings or can think on their own or to know if they are fathers/ parents. If child marriage is allowed, then a man can as well marry his daughter.  To me, child marriage is just like apartheid, it is against humanity, a wife must be matured to understand what is involved in marriage. Senator Ndume and others were saying we should capture them young, when they are still sweet, you can see the craziness and madness in it. It is absurd, an act against humanity, a child that does not understand marriage contract, you want her to marry. You could see a child of 13, 14 or 15 bulky or huge and think she can think like an 18 year old, then you are wrong. If you go to our schools, the percentage of children of 12 to 18 years, who can think properly, is small. Child marriage is an abuse to the girl child.


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