Sub-National Governments as Illusion

By Okey Ikechukwu

But wait: Do Nigerians really know the demands they ought to make of their governors, local governments chairmen, state Houses of Assembly, etc.? As thraldom and misery have taken up permanent residence in our subnational governments, do we all really care what people who are supposed to be dealing with leadership at subnational levels are doing with our money and with themselves? I think not. And that is because everyone has been living with barely-performing subnational governments.

Scenario number one: A local government chairman receives the sum of 150 million Naira in one month on behalf of his local government and nothing happens. Yes, nothing happens; and no one can see or tell what he did with it. The month before, the same local government chairman received the sum of 180 million and no one asked him what happened to is, or what he did with it. Since he became local government chairman, less than two years ago, his fleet of cars has increased. So has the size, and cost, of his residence. He even now has a hotel, as well as a big house, in the state capital.

Scenario number two: There are Ward and Council Chairmen in the local government. All of them carry on either as if they owe no one any responsibilities, or as if the schedules assigned to them by law do not even exist. Yet they are all on the organogram designed by the framers of our constitution for effective leadership and good governance. No questions are asked by the people. And that includes mostly traditional rulers, religious leaders, town unions, district and village heads in the local government; who ought to be custodiams of propriety.

Scenario number three: The entire supply of truckloads of bags of rice, (read palliatives) sent to a particular state of the federation from the centre was sold off, stock, lock and barrel by the governor, along with very people who are supposed to help him act as custodians of service delivery and defenders of the people’s well being. In short, the goods did not get to the people in whose name it was sent to the state because of the “subversive patriotism” or elected leaders.

And then this noisy talk, allegedly true, that the thousands of tons of fertilizer meant for farmers in some parts of northern Nigeria got sold off to our Cameroonian neighbours? Just saying.

Scenario number four: A state governor pulls out billions of Naira every month as security vote. Every month security worsens in the very state wherein these billions are being routinely pulled out from. No one asks questions about the increasing size of governors’ security votes and the increasing levels of insecurity in the states.

Truth be told, the problems of Federal republic of Nigeria today are not all about the Federal Government. Subnational governments are all lying flat on its stomach, bereft of all dignity and unwilling to take responsibility in many respects. Unable to present a cohesive leadership front, state and local governments, Counsellors and Ward Chairmen are part of the furniture in their respective neighbourhoods. It has been thus for a long time now, and it is as if we are all enveloped in an incubus of snarling befuddlement that rules out any inclination to question what is wrong.

That is why we are dragging towards a benighted terminus, because Nigeria’s subnational governments are mostly now a metaphor for how to exist without really living. We are told that the governors are in charge everywhere, and in that the local governments are emasculated and even underfunded. We are further told that the Chairmen are all twisting and turning piteously in subdued pain and near-asphyxiation. But are they really?

We are told that the local governments are ridiculed, swindled and roundly scandalised on all fronts by an elaborate scheme of the governors to maintain a stranglehold on them, in order to drain and use their resources. That, we hear, is the reason why there is not even a shadow of accountability and responsible service delivery at that level of government. It is all said to be a grand text for nominal and fraudulent leadership and service delivery, we are told.

True, many local government chairmen have found themselves in a system that excludes them from the very powers they are supposed to exercise. But that was before the Supreme Court judgment. What their equivalents all over the world are doing as a matter of course they cannot even contemplate. There is, for most of them, a strange identity crisis and an uncertain groping for validation, despite that landmark judgment. That level of government seems to be under a strange spell, with the denuding assaults of governors that seemed determined to annihilate them, until a few months ago.

The failure of constitutional provisions, the failure of reforms, and the decades of aggravated misconduct have all combined to almost make plain nonsense of our local government system. It is a matter of fact, and record, that the nation has lived with this reality for very long before the current government That is why the land and the people now bleed from all pores. Local government administration lacks relevance in every sense of the word. It is mocked by the wretched profile of its most visible political actions and actors. It crawls about in recondite and narrow corners, scandalized by everything it ought to stand for.

Look around you calmly and you must conclude that there is really nothing happening in our local governments. It boasts the most disregarded clan of political leaders. It is the least considered in many ways, notwithstanding the Supreme Court judgment. For decades now, its misfortune has lingered; until it became the norm. A massive industry of fraud sprung up, and now still thrives, around our local government system.

Much of the insecurity in the land remains a matter that intel from local governments can help with. The Airforce has been bombing and destroying illegal refineries for years now. This year alone several hundreds have been “destroyed”. Really?

Recall that some three years ago Nyesom Wike directed all 23 Local Government Chairmen in his state to hire bulldozers and destroy the illegal refineries in their respective local government areas. Four days before the directive, he said to the LG bosses, as mentioned in an article titled, “Governors, Just Look at Wike”: “Now, every council Chairman must go and identify illegal refineries … and you’re given 48 hours to go and identify all illegal refineries sites, and those who are in charge of them. … Our people are dying and we owe our people the responsibility to protect them, to save them from death”.

A few weeks before this directive, Wike went about commissioning several completed, and well-executed, projects. Concerning where the huge sums of money came from, the then governor announced that it was from massive tranches of cash he received in arrears from the Federal Government. Not quite done, he went ahead to tell Nigerians that all other oil-producing states in Nigeria received their shares of the same arrears. Then, he challenged the governors concerned. He asked them to explain what they did with their own share of the windfall. “Then, his colleague oil-producing governors started speaking in tongues”.

But that is not the point here. Wike is also not the point. It is all about tying the fortunes of the people to the tenure and continuity of subnational governments and their confirmed relevance in their respective domains. Wike’s handling of local government officials at the time pointed to what is possible; even if it was coming from an unlikely source. It was a pointer to what demands could and should be made on some subnational governments as elected leaders who should be part of the nation’s cohesive national leadership, service delivery and security architecture.

As was said back then, “That Wike called on the 23 Local Government Chairmen in Rivers State out was his way of putting responsibility for some aspects of environmental awareness and security squarely at the door step of those who are supposed to be closest to the people: and who should therefore know what is going on at any point in time”.

Will all our LG bosses, where they exist in real terms, not be forced to take their jobs seriously, if their governors are breathing down their necks? Will these chairmen not, in turn, descend on their largely idle Ward and Council Chairmen? Will this then not eventually bury the thriving expectation that we should all continue pretending that it is the business of the Federal Government in Abuja to address all local issues that a passing knowledge of one’s living environment should enable us to deal with?

As said then, regarding Wike’s Riot Act to LG Chairmen: “The beauty of Wike’s intervention … lies in the fact that he is calling out politicians who are in office as servants of the people to do their work. He is also, metaphorically speaking, asking his fellow governors and their LG Chairmen to do their jobs. They are being told that they have a duty to identify criminality and propose ways of dealing with same, in their largely closely-knit communities where everyone knows what everyone else is doing. He is saying that it is not right that people should carry official titles/cars and have their names on the government payroll, without actually being on the job”.

With the intervention of the Supreme Court, the days of our governors being sole administrators are over, and the reason is simple: “Being a governor, or a local Government Chairmen, has job description and role expectations in other climes. Enough of everyone pretending that we don’t know what’s going on and who is doing what”. The six months moratorium will soon be up. We suspect that this is a “political’ ploy, to enable the governors plug in their stooges and continue the old merry-g-round. But for how long?

Quote