S’Court Judgment: Stakeholders Chart Way Forward, Seek Accountability for LGs

*EFCC warns it won’t be business as usual

*BudgIT: N17.5tn disbursed to councils in 10 years

Ndubuisi Francis in Abuja

Stakeholders from the public service, academia, civil society and the anti-graft agency, among others , have called for the enthronement of a truly autonomous, democratic, effective and efficient as well as accountable and people-oriented local government system in the country following the recent Supreme Court verdict.

In a landmark ruling, the apex court on July 11, 2024 declared that disbursement of federation allocations to the local councils should be paid to local councils directly, also affirming that it is illegal for local governments to be run by caretaker committees appointed by state governors.

Converging yesterday on Abuja at a policy conversation hosted by Agory Policy and five others with the support of MacArthur Foundation, the stakeholders regretted that the local government administration which should be the most impactful on the people has failed to live to its constitutional role.

To set the tone for the event with the theme, “Enthroning Accountability in Local Governance in Nigeria,” the founder of Agora Policy, Mr. Waziri Adio, noted that a lot was expected of local governments from the 4th Schedule of the 1999 Constitution and the literature.

Adio listed the roles of local governments to include service delivery, development function, resource mobilisation role, regulatory role, political participation and security roles, among others.

He lamented that despite the heavy responsibilities vested at the local council level, it is the least trusted, least interested in and the least capacitated.

According to him, enthroning accountability at council level was a critical touchpoint, adding that it is not just horizontal accountability, but also vertical and diagonal.

Adio explained that the goal should not just be better elections and less corruption, but also about going from representative to participatory and deliberative democracy, stressing that the people needed to be in the front and centre of making local governments work better.

In his goodwill message at the event, Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Olanipekun Olukoyede stated that good governance is anchored on three critical elements, including accountability, transparency and citizen participation.

Olukoyede who was represented at the event by one of his top officials argued that for citizen participation to be effective and for accountability and transparency to be entrenched, solid development-minded people were needed to run local government administrations.
” It’s on this note that the EFCC serves local government administrations notice that it’s not going to be business as usual. Their activities will be scrutinised.

“We must make sure there is a deliberate effort to ensure the presence governance to the people. People must feel the presence of governance at the local governments,” he said.

Also, in his goodwill message, the founding Executive Director of the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development, Dr. Otive Igbuzor stated that the issue of accountability is key in local governments, adding that there was the need for credible, free and fair elections at local government councils to ensure accountability.

He cited some mechanisms that must be in place for effective local government administrations, including what he described as internal system within the government, legislative oversight, independent mechanisms for monitoring local governments such as the EFCC as well as the media and citizens.

In a presentation on the state of local government administration in the country, the Head of Tracka, BudgIT, Ms. Ayomide Ladipo recalled that since 1999, local governments have been plagued by a myriad of issues such as weak leadership, poor delivery of governance and infrastructure to citizens, excessive control/undue influence by
state governors as well and personnel capacity, and statutory revenue hijack.

Others are lack of democratic participation via regular elections and citizen
engagement, corruption and mismanagement of scarce resources.
She disclosed that a total of N17.5 trillion had been disbursed to local governments between July 2014 – June 2024 (a period of 10 years), which is almost equivalent to the
N17.9 trillion revenue the federal government generated between 2015 and 2020.

In a panel discussion on “Accountability and Local Governance in Nigeria,” discussants argued that the Supreme Court judgment of July 11 is a means to an end and not entirely an end to the problems bedeviling grassroots administrations in Nigeria.

The acting Director General of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), Alhaji Salawu Ozigi, who represented the National President of ALHON, Aminu Maifata stated that the local government system has an internationally recognised system of administration.
Noting that there was a need to give local governments a template for budgeting, he also explained that the state governments were expected to provide a framework for accountability at the councilv areas.

For the Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, ‘electoral coronation’ has been the norm in terms of leadershp of local governments instead of elections as prescribed by the Constitution.
He lamented that the state independent electoral commissions (SIECs) were everything but independent, and only do the bidding of governors.
He stressed that they are neither financially nor operationally independent, adding that he would rather prescribe the strengthening of the SIECs instead of creating new bodies for council elections or saddling the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with conducting council polls.

Commenting on the recent Supreme Court ruling vis–a-vis local government autonomy, Prof. Remi Aiyede of the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan urged dialogue between the federal government and the state governors to ensure a seamless implementation of the ruling.

According to him, the state governors were displeased on the manner President Bola Tinubu went about taking the matter to the apex court