These prostrate LGs

THIS week, Nigeria’s Green Chamber, the House of Representatives, proposed a bill seeking to amend the 1999 Constitution to allow for the creation of additional local government areas (LGAs) in Benue State. The bill, which passed the second reading in the House, is sponsored by the member representing Oju/Obi Federal Constituency of Benue State, Honourable David Ogewu. According to Ogewu, the proposed amendment will enhance grassroots governance by bringing government closer to the people. He contended that Benue, with its vast land mass and growing population, required more local councils for equitable development and efficient administration. According to him, the bill, once passed into law, will pave the way for the creation of additional councils in Benue, particularly within his constituency.

Ordinarily, it ought to be positive news that local governments are being created, but Nigeria’s peculiar situation easily undercuts any optimism. Ideally, the LGAs ought to be a creation of the states under which they are meant to operate, bringing development to the doorstep of the people who are supposed to fund them and, therefore, determine their trajectory. However, in its supposed desire to accelerate development, Nigeria’s military government created states and local governments, which it whimsically listed in the constitution as the third tier of government, taking its accustomed centralisation of governance and its processes to yet another level. Since the return to civil rule, there have been attempts by states to create additional local governments, but none of such attempts have been ultimately fruitful. The Nigerian Constitution recognises 774 councils and to come into effect, any new LGs will have to secure the buy-in of both chambers of the National Assembly, as well as two-thirds of the state assemblies in the existing 36 states.

Beyond the question of council creation, however, is the lingering question of functionality. To all intents and purposes, the extant local councils are mere caricatures. With the exception of a few states, including Lagos, they are not delivering on any developmental objectives. The roads they are supposed to control are in an atrocious state, they are not building primary schools or equipping primary healthcare centres and, indeed, most Nigerians do not even know the names of the chairmen and councillors, if any, in their local governments of residence. The councils are in a comatose state and there is criminal neglect of the essence of local government administration. Instead of delivering good governance at the grassroots, the councils are mere conduits for funneling the resources that should be deployed to open up the rural areas, alleviate poverty, create jobs, encourage agro-allied industrialization and reduce rural-urban drift, into private pockets.

In July last year, there was a lot of optimism in the polity as Nigeria’s apex court, the Supreme Court, ruled that funds allocated to local governments from the Federation Account should be paid directly to the councils instead of the previous practice of paying such allocations to the State Joint Account for Local Governments. Since paying them through states had not worked, it said, justice demanded that LG allocations from the Federation Account be henceforth paid directly to the councils. By that ruling, the Supreme Court barred governors from toying with LG funds. It also outlawed the use of caretaker committees to run the affairs of local governments. Significantly, it ordered direct allocation of funds to only local governments with democratically elected chairmen and councillors, adding that states must conduct elections to access the funds from the Federation Account.

As we noted, however, in as much as it is the right of the councils to control their own money, it is also important to ensure that the Supreme Court’s decision did not merely replace one inefficient and corrupt system with another system that is reckless and devoid of accountability. We added that even though the decision would debar governors and Houses of Assembly from dissolving elected local government councils since payment of allocation from the Federation Account would not be made to unelected officials at the local government level, it did not adequately address some fundamental issues. For instance, it did not address the situation where State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECS) persistently conduct sham elections to declare the candidates of the ruling party as winner of all seats at the local government level, and neither did it address the lopsided distribution of LGs across the country based on the creation of local governments by past military governments to satisfy sectional and personal interests. We have not been persuaded to change our view that there is a need for a wider debate on how to achieve a workable system of local government administration that respects local government autonomy and institutes democratic and accountable governance at that level.

Under the alleged chokehold of governors, the councils are being denied their statutory powers, rights and authority. This is nothing but brazen subversion of the constitution. They must have all the powers granted them by the law. Having functional councils will address the avalanche of failures that the current arrangement represents. The councils ought to be the fulcrum for rural development and economic growth, but they remain castrated. This has to change, even if it means enacting fresh legislation. Deliberately rendering them impotent is not only wicked and insensitive, but it also shows the disdain that Nigerian leaders have for the common people who should have confidence that their well-being and welfare are a central concern of government even at the most basic level.