Eben Enasco Reporting.
Nigeria as a nation is bounded as a federated state by constitutional laws.
The cycle of governance basically reflects the role of the three tiers of government as amended in the 1999 constitution where Federal, State and the Local Government are uniquely separated.
It was geared towards devolution of powers to enable the locals to
within their areas of jurisdiction under the Constitution as a tier of government operates without interference.
Under the 1999 Constitution, the councils are confronted with a myriad of challenges as they are limited to participate in the management of their own affairs.
There have been rampant cases of interference on the councils’ affairs by the state government.
Like the Land Speculators who persistently grab all land where their eyes can see, State Governors have become local government grabbers who from time to time undermine the 1999 constitution in the process.
In essence, they have continued to morph into local government speculators, repeatedly seizing control of local government operations.
This blatant disregard for the constitution echoes the unchecked behavior of land speculators, who grab land wherever they please.
By doing so, Governors erode the democratic legitimacy of local governments, rendering them less accountable to their constituents.
The 1999 Constitution clearly outlines the roles and limitations of State Governors, emphasizing their position as Chief Executives of their respective states.
Sections 176-178 detail their qualifications, election, and term limits. However, in practice, Governors often exploit their influence to subvert local governments’ autonomy.
One of the interferences is that the Local governments have been constantly dissolved and replaced by state government’s appointed agents which is affecting the development of the country’s grassroots because the majority of Nigerians live in the rural areas.
Local dwellers and the people are not made to know what governance is all about. Hence, rural urban
autonomy under the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria is being seen as a myth and not real.
The masses do not feel the dividends of government by way of social approach in the records of analysis of data collected and collated.
This inquiry found that the local government is controlled entirely by state governments.
For instance, elected
study appraises whether local government autonomy under the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria is a
Constitution.
Although it’s now clear that the constitution created the local government loosely as the third tier of government over lack of its autonomy which is rooted on the loopholes in the 1999 Constitution.
The development has left many with the perception or argument to scrap local governments in the country.
Local government has failed to impact on the lives of rural dwellers, living migration to drastically increased.
Given the constitutional provisions,
the local government administration has been subdued or conquered for many years at the state level.
The dominance of the State Governors is a reflection of the poorly managed local government administration whose life wire now depends on the state directive instead of operating independently.
This act, has ridiculously hamper ideas of duly elected local government Chairmen who could barely take decisions on their own.
Unarguably, there has been a selective electoral process implored by the state government to install a stoog to do their bidding during the local government elections, where you see the sitting Governor win all seats living the opposition parties with long faces even when they present better credentials.
This trend has remained so, for a better part of Nigeria’s democracy with successive governments turning away their faces amidst calls for LGA’s Autonomy.
If democracy is defined as the government of the people, for the people, and by the people, local government elections should be far from where a governor select local government’s Chairmen
Nigerian local governments have gone through a series of reforms under the military regime to make them better but without much success.
And now, the clamour for the 1999 Constitution to be amended in order to grant full autonomy to the local government is spreading and top figures like President Bola Tinubu are taking it as a pet project
President Tinubu said power devolution must now be seen directly impacting the grassroots.
Nigeria nation has recently relied on supreme Court Judgment in all sense of it despite the provisions of the constitution.
The Attorney General of the Federation AGF and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi SAN, recently re-echoed the position of the supreme Court judgement, warning state governors to resist the temptation of tampering with funds accruable to their various local governments from the federation allocation account.
Prince Fagbemi told the governors that doing so will make them guilty of gross mis-conduct, which is an impeachable offence.
The AGF spoke in Abuja, at the 2024 national conference of the National Association of Judiciary Correspondents NAJUC, Abuja chapter.
In a paper titled, ‘Aftermath of Supreme Court Judgment on Local Government Financial Autonomy: What Next?’ Fagbemi disclosed that “by the July 11, 2024 judgment of the Supreme Court, which granted financial autonomy to LGAs in the country, any governor who tampers with the finances of the LGAs in his state is seen to have committed a gross misconduct, which is an impeachable offence”.
The Justice Minister stated that if any local government chairmen choose to misappropriate public funds and fail to deliver on their constitutional mandates, they risk going to jail.
Fagbemi reminded the 774 local government chairmen in the country that they do not have immunity like state governors, and therefore cautioned them to be wary of governors with overbearing influence on local government officials.
Any debt incurred by governors, in relation to the official function of state government, according to the AGF, must be handled by the state.
He said any such debt should not be shared with the local government areas, as such projects are not the constitutional responsibilities of local governments.
The AGF highlighted the critical role local governments play in delivering grassroots development, and therefore advised council chairmen and other officials to prioritise their constitutional duties.
The local government is established in the entire globe to boost grassroot development.
Nonetheless, the history of the local government system in Nigeria is a chequered one, known as a vital instrument for rural transformation and machinery for effective
guarantees of the existence of a democratically elected local government system under
them.
The chief bane of local government has been canvassed to take off from the grassroots to build confidence of the rural dwellers and encourage local farmers for food sufficiency.
