RETHINKING LOCAL GOVERNMENTS  

Local councils should be empowered in order to perform their constitutional functions

The 1999 Constitution not only recognises the third tier of government, but it also prescribes its functions generally to include having the duty to “participate in economic planning and development of the area.” The idea behind the creation of local government administration is essentially to bring the effect and benefit of governance nearer the people at the grassroots. The need for this tier of government is further demonstrated by their sheer numbers – 774. Unfortunately, despite trillions of Naira that have accrued to them in the past 24 years, Nigerians have not felt their impact.  

In the fourth schedule of the constitution, the specific functions of the local government are well laid out. One of it, for instance, says, “local governments shall be responsible for the construction and maintenance of roads, streets, street lightings, drains and other public highways, parks, gardens, open spaces or such public facilities as may be prescribed from time to time by the House of Assembly of a state.” Also, the local government administration has the duty to provide and maintain public conveniences, sewage and refuse disposal.  

But over the years, the performance of local governments has been disappointing. And this is simply because they bear very little or no impact on the lives of the people at the grassroots. Indeed, most of the local governments have abandoned their basic duties. But for the physical existence of their offices, many local governments exist only on paper. Worse still, council officials are adept in the collection of rates and tolls from the communities, markets, motor parks, among others, without much thought of maintaining the structures and facilities from which those rates and taxes are collected.  

The terrible state of feeder roads, street roads, and inability to clear even refuse bins are all signature malaises of the failure of local government administration. In several of these local governments across the country, it is difficult to believe they are responsible for local dispensaries, health centres, and markets. Ironically, local governments now receive much more money, both from the federation account and internally generated revenues. Sadly, many of them merely exist for sharing monthly allocations from the federation account among top members of the council and political godfathers.  

That the councils maintain a joint account with the state governments has been blamed for this sordid state of affair. Some state governments are in the habit of hijacking the local government funds, releasing to them only a fraction of their entitlements for paying bills and maintaining statutory overhead expenses. Worse still, many of the governors sometimes release the pinched council funds with the attitude of ‘you should be grateful for even this bit’. State governors have been consistently accused of frustrating the local councils by unnecessarily dipping their hands into their statutory allocations.

Former President Muhammadu Buhari once expressed misgivings on the relationship between the local governments and states, saying that “the states feel like they own the local governments.” Apparently in a bid to deal with this problem, he signed Executive Order 10 which grants financial autonomy to the legislature and the judiciary in the 36 states of the country. But in nullifying the order, the Supreme Court judges held that the Constitution provides a “clear delineation between the state and federal government.”  

We believe that the local governments are important to the development of the country and for that reason, there is an urgent need for a reform that will make them play the critical role for which they were established. That should be part of the legislative agenda of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.