•Local governments should be alive to their responsibilities

The idea behind the creation of local governments is essentially to bring the effect and benefit of governance nearer the people at the grassroots. The need for this tier of government is further demonstrated by their sheer number – 774. The 1999 Constitution not only recognises the third tier of government, but it also prescribes its functions to include having the duty to “participate in economic planning and development of the area.” Unfortunately, despite trillions of Naira that have accrued to them over the years, Nigerians have hardly felt their impact.

In the fourth schedule of the constitution, the specific functions of the local government are well specified. One of it, for instance, says, “local governments shall be responsible for the 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.” Also, the local government administration has the duty to provide and maintain public conveniences, sewage and refuse disposal.

However, the performance of local governments has been disappointing because they bear very little or no impact on the lives of the people at the grassroots. Indeed, most of the local governments have abandoned their basic duties. But for the physical existence of their offices, many local governments exist only in name. Worse still, council officials are adept at the collection of rates and tolls from the communities, markets, motor parks, among others, without much thought to even maintain the structures and facilities from which those rates and taxes are collected.

The terrible state of feeder roads, street roads, filled and overflowing drains and inability to clear even refuse bins are all signature malaises of the failure of local government administration. In several of these local governments across the country, it is difficult to believe they are responsible for rural roads, local dispensaries, health centres, and markets. Ironically, local governments now receive much more money, both from the federation account and internally generated revenues. Sadly, many of them merely exist for sharing monthly allocations from the federation account among top members of the council and political godfathers.

That the councils maintain a joint account with the state governments has been blamed for this sordid state of affair. Some state governments are in the habit of hijacking the local government funds, releasing to them only a fraction of their entitlements for paying bills and maintaining statutory overhead expenses. Worse still, many of the governors sometimes release the pinched council funds with the attitude of ‘you should be grateful for even this bit’. State governors have been consistently accused of frustrating the local councils by unnecessarily dipping their hands into their statutory allocations.

Former President Muhammadu Buhari once expressed misgivings on the relationship between the local governments and states, saying that “the states feel like they own the local governments.” Apparently in a bid to deal with this problem, he signed Executive Order 10 which granted financial autonomy to the legislature and the judiciary in the 36 states of the country. But in nullifying the order, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution provides a “clear delineation between the state and federal government.”

If the idea behind the creation of local government administration is to bring the effect and benefit of governance nearer the people at the grassroots, it has not worked. We therefore call on their administrators across the nation to wake up to the responsibilities of their offices. It is only in doing this that they would be meaningful to the people and contribute to the development of the country.

Update news