By Onwa Ekor, Calabar
The Speaker of the Cross River House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Elvert Ayambem, has clarified that the tenure for elected local government officials in the state remains three years, and not four as earlier reported.
The Speaker’s clarification comes as corrigendum to a previous report where he was quoted to have said elected officials at the local government will now serve four-year tenure as other elected officials at the state and federal government levels, in compliance with the recent ruling of the Supreme Court.
He emphasized that, as stipulated in the state’s local government law, the tenure for local government councils remains three years and has not been amended.
In his words: “It is important to note that the state local government law differs from the Cross River Independent Electoral Commission (CROSIEC) law, which governs the procedures for conduct of the state local government elections.
“The judgement by the supreme court, delivered by Justice Mohammed Garba and six other justices on May 11, 2024, was only recently disclosed. This ruling asserts that local government chairmen and councilors are entitled to a four-year tenure, aligning with the tenure of officials at other government levels,” the Speaker said.
In providing further clarification regarding the tenure in Cross River, Ayambem reiterated that, according to the existing law, the tenure for elected council officials in the state remains three years.
He elaborated on the amendments made to the CROSIEC law, maintaining that the amendment focused primarily on three key areas; Firstly, the amendment now allows individuals who have served in CROSIEC to contest elections after their tenure, if they so aspire; reversing the previous prohibition.
Secondly, the amendment revised the fees for forms to be procured from CROSIEC by potential candidates, explaining that the previous provisions stated fees of N10,000,000 for chairmanship and N5,000,000 for councillorship, now slashed to N5,000,000 for chairmanship and N1,000,000 for councillorship.
The third amendment the Speaker disclosed, pertains to the timeframe for the conduct of the elections by CROSIEC and is here captured in verbatim thus: “Delete the phrase and figure “not less than 30 days before the date of an election” appearing in line one of subsection (1) of Section 20 of the Principal Law and substitute it with the following new phrase “in line with the relevant provision of the Electoral Act in force; “Provided that in the absence of a subsisting tenure of an elected council, the Commission shall not more than 90 days publish a notice and conduct election into the Council(s).”
He reaffirmed that the tenure for elected council officials will remain three years until the necessary amendments are made.
