Either we strengthen or scrap LGs

Jide Ojo, [email protected]^[1]
08077787701

there is no gainsaying that there is a gross abuse of the local
government system in Nigeria. Theoretically and constitutionally,
there are supposed to be three tiers of government in the country.
However, in practice, there seems to be only two functioning tiers
at the federal and state levels. The 774 Local Government Areas
listed in the constitution and the Local Council Development Areas
established by many state governments are comatose. They are
virtually dysfunctional because of the stranglehold on them by the
state governors.

Section 7 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria says, “The system of local government by democratically
elected local government councils is under this Constitution
guaranteed”. Unfortunately, many governors have been acting in
breach of this provision by dissolving democratically elected
councils and inaugurating their cronies as either sole
administrators or caretaker committees in charge of the local
councils.

Oftentimes, when elections fall due, the state governments claim
not to have funds to conduct such polls. In fact, many state
governments have blatantly refused to constitute the State
Independent Electoral Commissions meant to conduct the LGA
elections. Even when inaugurated, they are poorly funded to enable
them perform their constitutional duties. Furthermore, I can say
that many state Houses of Assembly have refused to grant four-year
tenures to their LGAs. The most common are two years and in a few
cases three years or even a year as was the case in Nasarawa State
before the 2018 amendment. Why is there no synchronisation of a
four-year tenure and a maximum of two terms for chairmen of local
councils as obtained with the position of the president and
governors?

It is an open secret that many local governments do not have
annual budgets. In fact, the council assemblies which are supposed
to be made up of elected councilors are oftentimes never
inaugurated nor meet to approve budget or programme of the council
chairman. Yet, constitutionally, the local government is supposed
to be made up of three arms of government viz. Executive,
Legislature and Judiciary. The local councils are to elect their
Speaker and other council leaders. The chairman ought to have
supervisors for different aspects of their departments. Even the
customary courts are supposed to be under local governments.

The Fourth Schedule of the Nigerian Constitution lists the main
functions of a local government council as follows:

“(b) collection of rates, radio and television licences; (c)
establishment and maintenance of cemeteries, burial grounds and
homes for the destitute or infirm; (d) licensing of bicycles,
trucks (other than mechanically propelled trucks), canoes,
wheelbarrows and carts; (e) establishment, maintenance and
regulation of slaughter houses, slaughter slabs, markets, motor
parks and public conveniences; (f) 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”.

Others include: “(g) naming of roads and streets and numbering
of houses; (h) provision and maintenance of public conveniences,
sewage and refuse disposal; (i) registration of all births, deaths
and marriages; (j) assessment of privately-owned houses or
tenements for the purpose of levying such rates as may be
prescribed by the House of Assembly of a state; and (k) control and
regulation of – (i) out-door advertising and hoarding, (ii)
movement and keeping of pets of all description, (iii) shops and
kiosks, (iv) restaurants, bakeries and other places for sale of
food to the public, (v) laundries, and (vi) licensing, regulation
and control of the sale of liquor.”

“2 (a) the provision and maintenance of primary, adult and
vocational education; (b) the development of agriculture and
natural resources, other than the exploitation of materials (c) the
provision and maintenance of health services.”

Strikingly, many of the above listed functions have been usurped
by the state governments. In doing so, the local governments have
been financially emasculated as the Internally Generated Revenues
they should have had from these multiple sources are being
collected by State Boards of Internal Revenue or Joint Tax
Boards.

The major threat to financial autonomy of local government in
Nigeria lies in some of the sub-sections of Section 162 of the
Nigerian Constitution. Here are some of the relevant provisions in
that section. Sub-section (5) says, “The amount standing to the
credit of Local Government Councils in the Federation Account shall
also be allocated to the State for the benefit of their Local
Government Councils on such terms and in such manner as may be
prescribed by the National Assembly.”

Subsection (6) says, “Each State shall maintain a special
account to be called “State Joint Local Government Account” into
which shall be paid all allocations to the Local Government
Councils of the State from the Federation Account and from the
Government of the State.” Sub (7) reads, “Each State shall pay to
Local Government Councils in its area of jurisdiction such
proportion of its total revenue on such terms and in such manner as
may be prescribed by the National Assembly.” And finally
sub-section (8) says, “The amount standing to the credit of the
Local Government Councils of a state shall be distributed among the
Local Government Councils of that state on such terms and in such
manner as may be prescribed by the House of Assembly of the
state.”

Unless and until the “State Joint Local Government Account” is
abolished and council funds from the federation account are
directly paid to these 774 LGAs, they will continue to be dependent
on the state governments for their existence. Quite unfortunately,
the 2018 constitution amendment on Local Government autonomy did
not scale through.

Early this year, Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit tried to
salvage local government administration by issuing guidelines with
effect from June 1, 2019 that all funds due to the LGAs should be
paid directly into their respective accounts and that all Money
Deposit Banks should not honour any cash withdrawal request from
the LGs beyond N500,000 daily while all other financial
transactions are to be made via cheques or electronic money
transfers.

State governors rose stoutly against this and lodged complaints
with President Muhammadu Buhari that the NFIU went beyond its brief
by issuing such a guideline. The Nigerian Governors’ Forum has even
sued the NFIU on this matter. On July 25, 2019, the National
President of the National Union of Local Government Employees,
Ibrahim Khaleel, said the state governments had come up with
another means of taking money from the local governments’ accounts
despite the financial guidelines issued by the NFIU to them not to
tamper with local government funds. He said local governments were
being asked to contribute to the running of some projects in states
which ordinarily were the responsibility of state governments. I
had said that governors would not give up on LG funds as many of
them who had created local council development areas depended on
the funds in the joint accounts to fund these LCDAs

Apart from all the aforementioned, local governments face huge
corruption challenges both from the political leadership and even
the bureaucracy. There is virtually lack of financial
accountability at the local government level. As earlier pointed
out, there is no budget, no legislative council, no sufficient
civil society engagement at the grassroots level. The little IGRs
being collected by the administrative staff of local governments
are not properly accounted for. This is antithetical to good
governance practice and should be addressed via legislation and
enforcement of legal provisions and policy guidelines. It is either
we reform the local government system for efficiency or simply
scrap it if we can’t let them function properly!

Follow me @jideojong

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