Why LGs must be autonomous

IN Nigeria today, as in other parts of the world, there are three tiers of government.

The third tier, which is the local government, operates in a particular area within a state.

In Nigeria, local government chairmen may be democratically elected or handpicked by the state government. In the latter case, such chairmen head caretaker committees.

Anybody who aspires to be a chairman or councilor must be a citizen of Nigeria who has resided in the country for at least a year, must be 18 years of age, and must have paid his or her tax regularly for three years. In addition, he or she must be of sound mind.

The tenure of the democratically local government leadership is three years while the caretaker ones may be in office for six months or more, subject to a review and extension by the state government. This, too, will depend upon their creditable performance.

Local governments, by the powers conferred on them, hold periodic meetings, make bye-laws, collect taxes, impose levies and make budgets for administration.

Ordinarily, local governments should provide basic amenities like water, roads, aqueducts and bridges, streetlights, good sanitary conditions and health care centres like dispensaries and maternity homes, for the good of the people.

Today, however, the story is different. Most of the functions of the councils have either been shoved aside or neglected completely by the local governments, and the impact of their administration is no longer felt by the people.

This is contrary to what obtains in other parts of the world, particularly in Europe from where we inherited the system. There, local governments perform core functions within the ambit of the law.

In Nigeria, any grants given to the local government by the Federal Government will first go to the state government, from where it will be disbursed to the local government.

This, undoubtedly, means that state governments control local governments administratively and financially. This idea, to my mind, is wrong for some clear reasons.

First, local governments are meant for the people in the areas of their jurisdiction. Second, they are elected by their people. If their finance is controlled by the state government, they will not be able to perform efficiently or fulfil their statutory obligations to the people.

Again, there is a tendency for the state governments to divert local government money to other projects, or even embezzle it.

However, as the local governments themselves may embezzle the allocation given to them by the Federal Government, what I feel the state government should do is to monitor their activities to ensure that the money is spent judiciously through auditing their accounts regularly.

If there is anything amiss, then, they should be asked to explain. Local governments should be made to perform better in the areas of water supply, refuse clearance, keeping the environments clean, construction of stalls, public latrines, health education, agriculture and others that are good for the people.

If state governments can do all these things, they will further enhance the confidence reposed in them by the people