In this interview with DEBORAH TOLU-KOLAWOLE, President, National Union of Local Government Employees, Hakeem Ambali, talks about the long-awaited LG autonomy, its impact on governance at the grassroots level, government?s inability to fully implement the autonomy and more

Recently, the Federal Government secured a landmark Supreme Court judgment for local government autonomy. What is your stance on this and how do you view the impact on the development of local communities?

I want to thank God that our agitation for over 21 years has come to reality. We have been leading the agitation for the actualisation of local government autonomy on three legs: political autonomy, administrative autonomy, and fiscal autonomy. Fiscal autonomy means that local government allocations, as appropriated, should be deposited directly into their coffers without intermediaries, as was the practice before the implementation of the 1999 Constitution.

We also believe that all the collectables of local government according to the 4th Schedule of the 1999 Constitution, which has been hijacked by the state government, should be released back to the local government. I mean that the signage fee being collected by the state government is illegal. What is known to law is the advertisement rate. The issue of collecting revenue in terms of refuse evacuation belongs to the local government. The illegal creation of land use charges, land rent charges and what have you is unknown to principal law. What is known is the tenement rate collected by the local government. We also believe that even the collection of tolls, rates and taxes at motor parks belongs to the local government. The creation of a motor park board and what have you is illegal. It is a way of hijacking local government resources. Currently, some states are even collecting revenue from primary health centres, which belong to the local government. This is similar to when local governments were made to bear 100 per cent of primary education funding, contrary to the 2002 Supreme Court judgment that stated local governments should only participate. In this regard, state governments have abdicated their responsibilities. Also, the issue of the marriage registry belongs to the local government entirely. It shouldn?t be meddled with by the state government. That?s fiscal autonomy. So, federal allocation should hit local government directly for transparency and accountability, so that the community will feel the impact. We also spoke about the political autonomy and devolution of power. NULGE is of the view that the composition of State Independent Electoral Commissions can never bring about a credible election in Nigeria. We submitted during the 9th Assembly that we should review the composition of SIECs because they?ve not been successfully conducting credible elections. What they?ve been doing is to organise a charade called election that amounted to coronation and promotion of political jobbers to lead local government. We believe that local government, state and national electoral commissions should comprise representatives of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, representative of Nigerian Bar Association, representative of the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress, representative of National Council of Women?s Society, representative of the National Youth Council, among others. They should have the power to appoint their chairman and secretary without undue interference by the state government, with the Independent National Electoral Commission causing the action circular to put them in place. Again, we also proposed that 20 per cent of funds by INEC should be set aside for the conduct and smooth running of SIECs because whoever pays the piper dictates the tune. If we allow the state government to fund SIECs, there is bound to be a compromise. We also clamour for the establishment of an Electoral Service Commission to regulate, supervise, and even punish corrupt electoral officers across the country, just like the National Judicial Commission. With all these, the electoral process at the local government would have been regulated. The Supreme Court ruled that no elected political officials should have the power to dissolve, suspend, or remove elected political leadership at the local government level. Then it ruled that the tenure of local government elected officials should be four years. That is the administrative autonomy for LG officers. Then, we want the Local Government Service Commission entrenched in the constitution for quality assurance and regulatory purposes of the operational model at the local government level, so that career officers should be held accountable and well-trained, well-supervised, and disciplined. We also said the auditor general for local government should be appointed among the chartered accountants from the council because every account has its own peculiarity. These are the three legs of our agitation. We thank God that during President Bola Tinubu?s administration, through the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, he was able to secure a judgment, which is a landmark and a turning point.

Six months after the judgment, the Federal Government has not been able to implement it. Is there any justification for the delay?

We are disturbed that up till now, the government has not been able to implement the judgment. All the claims and counterclaims of having issues with it have been resolved. The technical committee met, and NULGE, ALGON, and NUT submitted recommendations for smooth operation. There is no justification for the delay. We call on President Bola Tinubu to implement it now if the government is serious about addressing the myriad of problems confronting Nigerians. The impact of autonomy will be felt everywhere. Number one, the rural-urban drift or migration will be arrested. People are now moving towards the urban centres because there is a kind of infrastructural gap and deficit at the local government level. The rural routes are not pliable again. The role of the local government in infrastructural development is no longer realisable because funds meant for local government have been diverted and hijacked by some people. We believe that if autonomy is fully implemented, local governments will return to rural routes because over 70 per cent of the road network in Nigeria falls within the purview of local government administration. Addressing rural roads will impact food security because farmers will be able to transport farm produce from the farms to the villages and the markets. It will also impact the rural economy because the rural GDP cumulates to national GDP. Given autonomy, the local government will be able to address erratic power supply at that level. Local governments should be able to provide green energy as alternative energy, by looking at some rural hamlets and communities that can be supplied with solar power systems to provide electricity and also improve security. Then, on security, we believe that all security challenges are local and the solution to them is local. In the past, the local government usually called and organised security meetings with non-natives. Security arms in the local government were kitted and funded by local governments and they also provided logistics. Now, bandits are taking over everywhere because forests are no longer governed.

So, if local government autonomy is allowed to take effect, councils will index security outfits in their communities, whether it is Hisbah, Egbesu Boys, or Amotekun. It should be within the purview of the local government to recruit, kit, educate, train and also regulate them accordingly and provide them with some light arms to police the rural communities. There will be rural intelligence gathering and they will stem the tide of insecurity because the local people understand the terrain of their communities and they will effectively police it. So if we are serious about community security, arresting the spate of terrorism, banditry and what have you, we need to have the community police under the purview of the local government. That is one of the advantages of local government autonomy.

Have the local government councils open a special account with the Central Bank of Nigeria for the purpose of direct payment of allocations?

In our meeting during the ALGON national conference, I was there in Nasarawa, ALGON is more than ready to open the account, but the instruction has not come from the FAAC. The Federal Government is delaying the implementation. Even the CBN can open an account on behalf of the local government directly to warehouse their allocation. If the government is serious, instead of paying the allocation to JAAC, the money should be paid into that account and salary alone would be released, pending the conclusion of all formalities. You cannot continue making payments into the JAAC and keep saying you are working on something. With that, we are giving hope to those people who lost at the Supreme Court to believe there is a solution. In fact, it is an error to give the 90-day moratorium.

How will local government autonomy impact the rural population in terms of empowerment and skills acquisition?

Now, 72 per cent of the Nigerian population dwells in rural community settings. Out of the figure, 70 per cent are the poorest of the poor. You have the youths, women, the retirees and some workers. The local government autonomy will impact them positively because there is a department of vocational skills acquisition and community development in local government which will carry out baseline data. I know they have a social register in the local government. What needs to be done is to activate it, so that the unemployed, the disadvantaged and those who are physically challenged will be stratified and trained by that department. With autonomy, vocational skills acquisitions in the local government would be re-energised so that women and youths will be trained and empowered. The impact of local government autonomy will also be evident in primary healthcare. With that, infant mortality and maternal mortality will be reduced to the barest minimum. As of today, nobody supervises what is happening in the community hospitals. So, primary health centres need to be revitalised, workers recruited and some basic amenities that will make them function provided. Functional primary education is no longer there. As of today, SUBEB at the state level is not doing enough. Primary education has become a caricature of self, not because we don?t have professionals there. But where is the equipment? Where are the teaching aids and materials? In the past, there were local government inspectors who monitored what they were doing, to achieve quality assurance. As of today, we don?t find them again because there are no funds in the local government. In the past, the local government used to give scholarships and bursaries to students, but that?s not in existence again. And speaking of our traditional institutions, local government autonomy will mainstream them into governance. You remember the era of the Directorate of Food and Rural Infrastructure under former President Ibrahim Babangida, where local governments were opening community roads, providing culverts, grading and tarring roads, providing rural electricity and all that. That is the era local government autonomy will return us to.

Some governors opposed the autonomy because of financial mismanagement and misappropriation of funds by local government chairmen. There were concerns about administrative efficiency too. How do you address these concerns?

The concerns are misplaced and not valid at all. For instance, I have never seen a university that trains only governors, ministers, or presidents. All of us attend university, for God?s sake, and we earn degrees. We have PhD holders in local government. We have engineers, even chartered engineers, in local government. Let me tell you, former Governor Akinwumi Ambode of Lagos State was a local government worker.

The Federal Commissioner for Federal Civil Service, Dr Oyebade Olowogbenga, was the president of NULGE and Head of Service for Osun State before he became a federal commissioner. Many of them are in the system. In fact, the current Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives is from the local government. Ex-Governor Nyesom Wike, the current Federal Capital Territory Minister, is from the local government in Rivers. Many of them like that. Even the Minister of Special Duty and Intergovernmental Affairs is a former chairman of AMAC in Abuja. So I don?t know where that mentality comes from.

actually, it?s only calling a dog a bad name to hang it. I also know that corruption is not limited to an agency, even at home, it?s there. I know in the records of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, we have many governors, over 30 times the number of local government chairmen, if we have any. Again, why should that be? Should the President say that because state governments are corrupt, the Federal Government will not release their allocation? Or are they saints? Even the federal agencies. That is why, in our recommendations, we made categorical recommendations to these agencies. Let there be an independent department of audit in the local government. Let the auditor general for local government be appointed among forensic auditors from local government. Let the Local Government Service Commission be removed from the influence of the governors and put it in the constitution like the Federal Civil Service and State Civil Service Commission. Then, we should have the procurement policy in place. A monitoring committee comprising all the in-house agencies, the anti-corruption agency, and ALGON, should track the funds of local government, while monthly allocation should be published in national dailies. The NULGE would partner with the anti-corruption agencies, the National Financial Intelligence Unit and others to track the funds.

We also recommended that the Ministry of Special Duty and Inter-Governmental Affairs should scale up the knowledge of political officeholders and technocrats in the local government to understand the policy thrust of the President. (The PUNCH)

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