Henry Kissinger, a great US Secretary of State, in his final interview before living office following the Nixon’s Watergate Scandal, cautioned world leaders that, in a world where a few entities become islands of wealth amidst a sea of despair, those who consider themselves dispossessed would always constitute the seabed of upheaval. Whether Boko Haram, IPOB, Area Boys, kidnappers, bandits, cattle rustlers and all: they all come from the same source: a failed grassroots governance structure.
Except we make the 774 local governments strewn across the country work, the countryside would continue to be stripped bare. As a result, the whirlwind of urban-rural drift and the resultant wave of insecurity will continue to wreck our major cities, who constitute islands of wealth in a sea of the grassroots despair.
Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, guarantees “The System of Local Government by democratically elected councils.” Similarly in the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, the functions of Local Governments were outlined. Painfully, the observance of these provisions has been more in the breach than in compliance by the various states of the federation.
The recent efforts by President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that local governments get their required funds in a reform through the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) are highly commendable. The policy is designed to check the diversion of local government allocations by state governors and should be supported by all well-meaning Nigerians.
Mr. President should also move further to remove all clogs in the wheel of local government autonomy by moving to abrogate the Joint Account Allocation Committees (JAAC) Act as it has outlived its usefulness. It should also ensure strict adherence to provisions that states allot 10 per cent of their Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) to their local governments. In the same vein, all provisions on the Fourth Schedule of the constitution regarding the functions of local governments should be enforced.
A look back into the 20 years of civilian democratic governance, easily reveals that all the local governments in the country have received more than a whopping N19 trillion. Considering that every local government receives an average monthly statutory allocation of N100 million, every local government has thus far received an average of N24 billion in the 20 years of civilian administration and there is nothing to show for it. Over 75 percent or roughly N14 trillion of this money was intercepted and misappropriated by state governors.
To justify this appalling situation, very flimsy arguments have been adduced. One of such is the lack of manpower in for the local governments. This argument is unsustainable as Nigeria today has 153 universities, 83 polytechnics and a host of other tiers of higher institutions. Even if the required manpower for local governments were to be all graduates, all the local governments would have more than enough and there would still be graduates walking the streets.
Another major abuse is that of the lack of the electoral principle in local governments. Even though the constitution guarantees a local government system through democratically elected councils, the governors have often defied this requirement choosing to populate the local government authorities with sycophants to aid their rape of this tier of government.
All federal governments, US, Germany, and others, beyond their federating units have active municipal or city governments headed by mayors or their equivalents. In Africa, South Africa offers a good example. South Africa has nine provinces which function as states and which are subdivided into municipalities. Even in strong arm countries like Russia, the various republics which function as states have municipalities which enjoy a high measure of autonomy in the running local affairs.
The Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) has always argued that local government autonomy would kill primary education in Nigeria. Curiously, everyone today knows that public primary school system is as good as dead despite the overarching influence of states in the management of their affairs. Under the native authority days, primary schools fared even better than now.
All great nations of the world are countries that have harnessed local governance as a force for national development. Local governments are made attractive to their best brains. Mr. President should therefore proceed boldly, propose a Bill for an Act to remove the bottlenecks to local government autonomy, protect the electoral process at the grassroots level and prosecute greedy and tyrannical governors.
When youths see their communities regenerated they would be encouraged to stay back and those in the cities would return home. Without strengthening our local government system Nigeria would continue both to implode and to play catch-up on the global stage.
Uzodinma, Convener, Coalition for Local Government Autonomy (CoLGA), writes from Plot 1200, Cadastral Zone Bo 2, Durumi Abuja via
[email protected]; +2348033311934
