The importance of LG autonomy

COUNTRIES like the United States of America, Australia and Germany realised early enough that their rural areas constituted the overall geographical territory that made them federal states.

This was the reason they didn’t toy with the idea of a democratised and autonomous local government system. From  a technical analysis, the 774 local councils in Nigeria make it a federal state.  Hence, the development of the councils signifies the development of Nigeria as a whole.

At the same time, the underdevelopment of the local councils also means the underdevelopment of Nigeria as a whole. Therefore, until  the full implementation of local government autonomy is done, every attempt towards redeeming the country from economic recession would be in futility.

Nigeria, as a giant and averagely industrialised state in Africa, taps the resources within its national territory. The question now is this: where do the resources from? If I may answer, the resources come from the rural areas within the national territory. There is nothing to review in the revenue sharing formula without the resource inputs from each local government.

The clamour for the development of agriculture and rural areas will also amount to nothing when local government autonomy is not fully granted and implemented.

It is only when the local governments have autonomous status in the country that meaningful development can be experienced.

My prayer for the nation is that God should enlighten our public office-holders to know what to do, to get to the next level, so that we can meet up with other developed countries in the world.

• Paul Adeosun

Lagos