The Supreme Court judgement of Thursday, on financial autonomy of local governments in Nigeria, has steered citizens’ discussion elsewhere from biting hunger in the land and the stinging food inflation. We have all returned from our backyard farms and the vegetable gardens by our pavements. Long before the institution of the case by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), administration and finance of the country’s 774 local government areas had always been a frontline debate. Like a sore thumb, local government issues have always stuck out. Back then when Bola Ahmed Tinubu was the governor of Lagos State, it was even a hotter, indeed fiery dispute between him and the federal government of Nigeria under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. The Supreme Court settled the matter eventually. The more one tries to differentiate the matter of that era from the current one, the more it appears the same. It is still difficult to really distill them. The disputes of the two eras are the same because they both boarder on how to properly administer the local governments and manage the finance of the government at that level. …And by whom?
With the Nigerian apex court weighing in on the current local government issues courtesy of the same Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, now as the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, it has taken a new tone and texture. The matter is either sweet fragrance or a rancid development. Thursday’s judgement is either music to your ears or a cacophony of powerful voices against the 1999 Constitution. Whatever scent it gives to you or however it sounds in your ears, the judgement has still not changed the main issues: The fact that there is hunger in the land, and that Nigerians need to experience proper governance at the grassroots level. Nigerians want a people’s local government.
We heard about local government administration in the days of regional government in Nigeria. We also read a few things about that era that showed that local governments were independent, authoritative and had a lot of things under their control especially their finances and administration. Many prominent politicians of the later pre-Independence Nigeria made waves as local government chairmen or sundry officials, or at best regional government appointees. Yet, they still excelled and left their marks on the sands of their respective localities, cities, regions and states. Many accounts point to a contention that when the local government was a government indeed, they fared far better than what they have been turned to by our modern-day political overlords.
And while the debate rages on what the real problems of local government administration in Nigeria is, we must not lose sight of the people who are the puppeteers of the local governments. They are referred to as governors, and only one local government chairman stood up to his governor in recent times. His name is Wale Adedayo from Ogun State. Adedayo has been vindicated by the Supreme Court verdict but he has left the office because he fell out with the governor. Our governors are very powerful and they use the position and its inherent powers to stifle any form or manner of dissent in the local government.
But the local government is not the issue for me, because the governors would find their ways to still play with their toys. Many of the local governments will still not be able to award meaningful contracts or carry out heavy-duty jobs because they would be stifled. The rural areas would still not feel the impact of local governments and community roads, bridges and culverts will still remain sources of worry to rural dwellers. I leave local government brouhaha for the politicians because their matter is like that of two brothers who are eating in the evening and one insists on having the dinner table lit.
But will the people worry more about local infrastructure, salary and emoluments now as much as they are currently worried about high cost of food? And we have been told that food prices will crash in Nigeria in 180 days – that is a period of six months. We have to leave the local government to plant vegetables in our gardens. We have to grow what we eat. But before our plants mature, what would we be eating?
Men: Who are you asking that stupid question? I am advising you to plant something and you are telling me rubbish! Plant something in any orifice or crevice available to you. Plant okro, plant beans, plant rice, plant maize, sorghum, millet, wheat, apple, mango, plant spinach, plant ukazi, plant atama, plant melon, plant yam, plant iru… locust beans, plant cassava, plant money, plenty of it. Just plant anything and wait for its maturity before you complain. Even if the beans you will harvest, after a few months, cannot fill a milk cup, you will at least be proud that it is your handiwork. Why will you be complaining of hunger as if you didn’t know that you can feed yourself from the abundant land in your backyard in Okokomaiko? What is wrong with you?
You can even plant palm tree. That tree is so useful that all of its part generates money. It is like the shekere, all of that musical instrument’s body is useful. Wherever you grab, it will make music for you. Let me explain before you ask me another stupid question. When your oil palm grows and fruits, you will not need to buy palm oil in the market. When you plant certain varieties, they mature in about three years… just three years pere! Then you can get palm oil for your family’s consumption. From the fronds, you make broom with which you will be cleaning your compound. The stems are useful for fencing your compound. When it grows to a certain height, you can even tap it for palmwine. Palmwine makes us happy everyday. You will forget your sorrows and even forget the government and its numerous promises you might not live long enough to see come to fruition.
Men: What promises again? Have they made new promises ni?
Man: The Minister of Agriculture has promised that food prices in Nigeria will crash in 180 days. You didn’t hear? The government is doing a lot, maka Chukwu! Just renew your hope.
Man: Which aspect of agriculture ministry are you talking about? Ministry of Livestock… Or Ministry of Agriculture itself? And 180 days? What will we be eating before 180 days mature? Or has he forgotten that 180 days are six months? So, the minister is saying that food prices will crash in January 2025.
Men: I said it! You will ask stupid questions. It is your forte. You don’t believe this government, and it is because of your hatred for the president. You do not see anything in this government. Let me leave you with your pessimism. You are a chronic wailer… Before the 180 days the minister promised, what have you been eating before? If you cannot continue to eat what you had been eating, then fast. 90 days and 90 nights will make it up. Idiot!!! I’m leaving here. You are a hopeless case. I’m leaving here mbok! Let me get out of here before you infest me with your hopelessness. I’m going to buy petrol at the filling station junction. If you like, don’t call Jimmy to meet me there. I will just buy petrol and leave immediately. I will not even wait at all.
Man: Jimmy will meet you there unless you don’t intend to buy from the major marketer. Fuel is not available at the other petrol stations and the one that sells at the junction sells for about N750. Is that how much you want to buy it? Or you have not heard that NNPC said that it is having debt problems with its suppliers?
Men: Please just face your local government. What did you say you wanted again?
A people’s local government. One which will visit the hinterland as and when due and work for the people. It will be people-oriented and work for them. It will repair their feeder roads and streets, fix culverts and maintain them without the eternal loud cries of the people. The administrators w
The government says it is gradually turning things around in the country. They should please hasten up. We need food and we need a people’s local government system.
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