LG as hostage of FG, states

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LG as hostage of FG, states

The existing local government system in Nigeria remains a major debate in the clamour for a new dawn in the land, writes KUNLE ODEREMI .

The past few weeks have witnessed a simmering feud between governors and local government chairmen over the latter’s continued stay in office, apparently because of the circumstances that brought them into office. Issues about politics have overshadowed the important position of that level of government in almost all the 774 local government areas across the country in grass roots development.

While some ‘sacked’ chairmen, especially have gone to court seeking to retain their seats, others have leaned substantially on the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) to lead the battle against the governors.

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Though the 1999 Constitution expressly states that the administration at the local government must be based on a due democratic process, local government elections are usually, to say the least, democratic as the process are usually manipulated to favour the ruling party in a particular state. At another level, stakeholders at the local government tier also lack unanimity over granting of autonomy to the councils.

For example, members of the National Union of Local Government Employees’ (NULGE) are apprehensive that such autonomy could compound their current woes, especially on workers’ welfare, especially primary school teachers.

By its nature, local government ought to serve as the fulcrum for development because of its proximity to the people. It is endowed with immense potential, which if properly harnessed and managed, will make life comfortable for the majority of the population. Sadly, the story of local government in Nigeria is a pathetic one because of the general malaise and issues that have continuously dogged the path of the most populous Black Nation in the world. Federal and state governments have usurped the major functions of the local government. Its powers and duties have been greatly eroded and its rights and privileges as an important engine of development abused thereby castrating local government administration.

According to most Nigerians, it is an understatement to say local governments have become dysfunctional. They have become moribund and mere conduit pipes to siphon public funds. With its statutory functions hijacked by both federal and state governments, local government has lost its estimation in the scheme of things. A former Minister of Special duties, Professor Taoeed Adedoja is among eminent citizens that have lamented what the local council has become over the years. He said: “The existing local government system is still fundamentally wrong. Section 7 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria states that the Administration of Local Government shall be by democratic means. However, unfortunately, the local government tier of government was not pronounced as the third tier of Government thus subjecting the tier to abuse of the states. We are definitely raping the 1999 Constitution.” According to him, the various reforms carried out so far have not addressed the fundamentals; that is pronouncing the local government as the third tier of government for the true administrative and financial autonomy it ought to enjoy.”  A similar view was expressed by Shehu Bankole-Hameed, who said the series of reforms carried out over the years were basically cosmetic because of the overbearing influence of both the federal and state governments on local government. Bankole-Hameed, who is the author of the book, Obama first African American president, said: “The idea of local government is at the very core of governance; be it in the form of historical Yoruba kingdom, which relied on abule and adugbo to the Western ideologies of democracy and autocracy. In fact, the Americans have their parlance, ‘all politics is local.’ There’s no government but at the local levels, where close associations are developed and thorough understanding of the individuals, community needs are gathered. It is indeed the very source of data for any and all developmental studies and efforts. In the case of Nigeria, we have federal and state governments as superintendents, behaving as if the very essence of their existence as state or federal is inconsequential, resulting in corruption and bad administration.”

 General reforms

Two major attempts were made in the past to place that level of government in its rightful position. There was the 1976 Local Government reform and a similar exercise in 1988 with both efforts carried out under military regimes. The issue of local government reform also featured during the various national conferences held, either during the military interregnum and after the country returned to civil rule in 1999.  According to reports, the 1976  local government reform was meant: to institute an enduring viable Local Government Council System; the creation of a system that could serve as a catalyst for the development of the areas involved; to have a local government with a uniform structure through a one-tier system such that a local government would not be less than 150,000 people or more than 800,000 people, to insulate the exalted and respected position of traditional rulers from the vagaries of partisan politics; and finally as eloquently stated in the Local Government Reform Guidelines of 1976 was the need to guide against the situation where “The state governments have continued to encroach upon what would normally have been the exclusive preserve of the Local Government.” Similarly, the 1988 reform was designed to bring professionals into the local government service by creating mandatory departments (personnel, finance, supply, among others and officers (councillors, secretary, treasurer, auditor-general for local government.

All these led to the provision in Section 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution on the kind of local government system the country should operate. It states: The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the government of every state shall, subject to section 8 of this constitution, ensure their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils.

Powers of LGs

Two dons, Ozohu-Suleiman Abdulhamid and Paul Chima are of the Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences at the University of Abuja. In an academic work entitled: Local government administration in Nigeria: the search for relevance, they listed the window of opportunities created for local governments to reposition them for good governance and efficient service delivery through the reforms of 1988.

According to them, the reform unveiled a huge potential sources of internally generated revenue  that included rates, including property rates, education rates and street lighting; taxes such as community, flat rate and poll tax; and fines and fees, including court fines and fees, motor park fees, forest fees, public advertisement fees, market fees, regulated premises fees, birth registrations, etc.

According to the duo, in order to make the reforms work, local government officers and local politicians were given a free hand to operate with little or no interference in their daily affairs. State ministries for local government only had responsibility to advise, assist and guide – not to control the local governments under their jurisdiction. According to them, the reform was a “fundamental change, because for the first time, a single system of local government was attained in Nigeria. The financial system was also restructured, introducing statutory allocations of revenue from the Federation Account, with fixed proportions of federal and each state’s revenue given to local government.”

It is also significant to note that at different times, attempts were made in the last political dispensation to grant autonomy to the local councils. Such effort met a brickwall as state governors frustrated it. Members of state Houses of Assembly aligned with the state chief executives pretentiously on the ground that the move was against the spirit of federalism since the centre and state must have coordinate powers with local council subsumed in states.

Ironically, states emasculate local councils through various means, especially on the issues of appointments, administration and particularly funding, one of which is the operation of a Joint Local Government Account and extra ordinary agencies like the Local Government Commission. The central government also asserts undue authority over states by ‘bypassing’ the latter and recognising the local council as a level of government and dealing with it without recourse to state government, in contravention of the letters of the constitution, principle of federalism and separation of powers.

It was against this background that the directive of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) (NFIU) to scrutise and monitor the funds of local council was mired in a constitutional crisis with governors vehemently resisting what they considered as an aberration.

Future of LGs

The importance of that level of government is brought to a sharp focus by a legal practitioner, Chief Supo Shonibare. He emphasised that the local government is an essential tier of government that should be responsible for enabling delivery of such services as basic education up to the level determined by the state Legislature, health, roads, market regulations and other functions devolved by extant law. He said the tier of government must be accessible and answerable to the electorate in the particular catchment area. However, he said the problem of local government had been “funding and devising means of ensuring those exercising these critical functions were held accountable to the people. He added: “Local government has simply been poorly funded and even the meagre resources provided is invariably looted and shared, so its present existence has very little impact on delivery of services and development. Some of our associates in other parts of the country say even the pretence of delivery of services is non-existent in certain parts of the country where local government chairmen simply turn up when allocations are released, share with councillors, until the next allocation period.”

Again, Shonibare offered a clear constitutional perspective to the crisis in the local government system in the country, blaming it on the existing defective federal structure because the concept of the centre determining the number of local government areas for a state or any federating unit is an anomaly in a federation. According to him, “The present Constitution partly cures that defect by conferring the powers to create local governments on the state. The Supreme Court has, however held that this powers were inchoate, as the same constitution still requires that the National Assembly passes consequential returns legitimising that creation. This in effect still requires the consent of the Federal entity.” He reasoned that this could be because local governments shared from federal allocations allowed to all tiers of government, a trend he said was another aspect of the incurably defective nature of the military constitution still being operated by a civilian administration. Therefore, he recommended: “We need to restructure the polity and devolve the functions of funding and determine the numbers and functions of local government in any state on the laws of the state. The state will therefore be at liberty to determine the structure and functions of the local government in a manner that will make them able to carry out their functions. It’s the phenomenon of sharing federal allocations that has encouraged the proliferation of local governments.”

With a new set of elected public officials mounting the saddle at various levels in the new political dispensation, should Nigerians expect to see a clear shift from the past to a new dawn that tallies with the spirit of the constitution in the structure and administration of local government in the country? Will the governors do things differently based on the constitution?

LG as hostage of FG, states
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