There appears a renewed momentum to get the 774 local governments in the country begin to live up to their constitutional functions. President Bola Tinubu, the Senate and the Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi had within the last two weeks or so, shown inclinations to that desirable direction. The president had at a national discourse on Nigeria’s security challenges and good governance, established a nexus between the worsening insecurity and the poor state of governance at the local government levels across the country.
He noted that the degradation and incapacitation of the local government system contributed greatly to our inability to address the prevailing national security threat even as the local governments stand as first line defenders against insecurity on account of their closeness to the people. Fagbemi in his contribution at the occasion would rather want the State Independent Electoral Commissions SIECs scrapped for constituting the main impediment to the development of the local government system. For him, the most prevalent form of abuse is the use of the SIECs to conduct sham elections and governors’ preference to appoint caretaker committees.
The elimination of the SIECs and transfer of their powers to the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, he contended, would foster true democracy at the local government levels. Senate intervention came through a resolution asking president Tinubu to convene a national dialogue with state governors, state legislators, local government officials and relevant interest groups to deliberate on full autonomy for the local governments. But the federal government has moved beyond rhetoric. It instituted a suit at the Supreme Court to compel state governors grant full autonomy to the local governments. In that suit, the government is asking the apex court to grant “an order prohibiting the state governors from unilateral, arbitrary and unlawful dissolution of democratically elected local government leaders for local governments”.
It is also asking the court to make an order expressly stating that the funds standing to the credit of the local governments from the Federation Account should be paid directly to the local governments rather than through the state governments. The court is equally being prayed for an “injunction restraining the governors, their agents and privies from receiving, spending or tampering with funds released from the Federation Account for the benefit of the local governments when no democratically elected local government system is put in place in the states”. Encapsulated in all these prayers are the key challenges militating against the effective functioning of the local government administration in the country. If the apex court (being a policy court) grants all the prayers, most of the challenges standing in the way to the autonomy and financial independence of the local government administration would have been sorted out. Then, we shall witness a local government system that discharges on its statutory mandate.
But it remains a moot issue whether the reliefs sort by the federal government are better approximated through court action or the instrumentality of constitutional amendment. So, it is not just enough for the senate to pass a resolution requesting the president to convoke a national dialogue to discuss the local government autonomy question. Our political space is neither lacking in such conversations nor is the National Assembly handicapped in initiating the necessary constitutional amendments to plug loopholes in the extant constitution. Pious statements, resolutions and pontifications are inherently ineffective in addressing the more fundamental challenges to the local government administration that arise from gaps in sections of the constitution.
The last National Assembly did a lot of work to get the contentious sections of the constitution amended to enhance the financial and administrative autonomy of the local governments. But that effort was sabotaged by some state governors goading their state houses of assembly. It remained a sad commentary that when the bill for the proposed amendments was transmitted by the last National Assembly for the concurrence of the state assemblies, they voted against it. Part of the bills voted against by the state assemblies were ones seeking financial and administrative autonomy for the local governments, the abrogation of the state-local government joint accounts and the establishment of the local governments as the third tier of government. Perhaps frustrated by the inability of the national and state assemblies to forge a common front on this vital constitutional change, the federal government had to approach the apex court to seek judicial remedy.
Though it would appear a desperate approach to a malignant challenge, the move by the federal government resonates with the people. This is especially so given the suspicion that many of the state assemblies that are rubber stamping for the state governors may still frustrate any piece of legislation that seeks to curtail their unbridled hegemony and control over local government funds. The issues for which the government approached the court are at the root of the inability of the local governments to discharge their statutory duties in the areas of sanitation, market control and development and local road construction among others. They hinge on the funds accruing to the local governments from the Federation Account paid into the state-local governments’ joint accounts. The reality is that much of the funds allocated for the development of the local councils are hijacked by state governors and diverted. Incidentally, that is the tier of government closest to the people.
It is also the barometer for gauging the temperament of the people; effects of government’s policies, programmes. The boundaries of all the 774 local governments coincide with the boundaries of the country. By extrapolation, when you develop all the local governments, no part of the country will be left underdeveloped. Even the seemingly advantaged state capitals and the federal capital territory fall within one local government council or the other. That illustrates the incalculable harm the country is into disallowing effective governance at that level. It also illustrates the incongruity in allowing governors regale in the hijack of funds meant for the local governments through various guises. It is inconceivable that we can make reasonable progress when development at that level is stalled through deliberate subterfuge to disallow true democracy from germinating and flourishing at that level of governance.
There is merit in any arrangement that allows funds meant for the local councils to get to them directly. The preference for caretaker committees in place of democratically elected persons at the local governments should not be allowed to continue. Not only do governors refuse to conduct elections when the terms of incumbents expire, they connive with their assemblies to amend laws to allow them dissolve democratically elected governments at will. When they find time to conduct elections through the SIECs, it is more of a selection process. Only those approved by the ruling party win such election.
Fagbemi wants SIECs disbanded and their functions transferred to INEC. Sadly, INEC has not even fared better within its current sphere of functions. With the way it has acquitted itself, allegations of federal interference in local government elections may also creep in. The challenge is not as much with the institutions created to handle certain functions as with the disposition and willingness of the operators to play by the rules. Our democracy is constrained more by the dispositions, attitudes and orientations of the people than the systems we operate. Perhaps, the Supreme Court will be visionary and patriotic enough to resolve this constitutional lacuna and allow the local governments breathe.