Quest for LG autonomy and govs’ opposition
As a way of ensuring that Nigerians are completely carried along in the exercise, both chambers of the federal legislature in November 2012 held public sessions and public hearings to get the people’s input on all the items to be considered for review and amendment. The House of Representatives held the people’s public sessions across […]
As a way of ensuring that Nigerians are completely carried along in the exercise, both chambers of the federal legislature in November 2012 held public sessions and public hearings to get the people’s input on all the items to be considered for review and amendment. The House of Representatives held the people’s public sessions across the 360 federal constituencies, while the Senate conducted public hearings in the six geo-political zones of the country.
Reports at the end of the exercise by the National Assembly indicated that majority of Nigerians are in total support of the strengthening of local government councils via autonomy. It was indeed the only item that got the ‘yes vote’ from participants in all the 360 federal constituencies. Similarly, various speakers at the zonal public hearings spoke very strongly in favour of LG autonomy.
Unfortunately, the recent outburst by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) has shown that the governors are mainly the only group that does not think there is need for any form of autonomy for the effective and efficient running of the local government administration. NGF chairman, Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, reportedly said they (governors) will do everything possible as a pressure group to stop lawmakers (state and federal) from granting autonomy to local governments.
Asked why the governors were opposed to local council autonomy, Amaechi said: “Let a state governor or let the states create as many local governments as they want to create. Don’t put it there as a constitutional issue… The governors are a pressure group, if we succeed in putting the pressure on both National and State Assemblies and say look there are two tiers of governance. There is no country in the world where there are three federating units; there are only two all over the world. Why should you say that there must be third federating units in Nigeria?”
Notwithstanding the whys and wherefores propounded by the NGF for kicking against the agitation for independent LGs, informed Nigerians know the real motive behind their stance on the matter. It is a known fact that state governments are in the habit of emasculating LGs under their control, thereby reducing them to mere appendages against their recognition as the third tier of government in the constitution.
The governors have continued to take advantage of the deficiency in the constitution, where even though local councils are acknowledged as a tier of government, framers of the constitution failed to give them the full autonomy needed to operate as such. LGs are diametrically subjected to the control of the state governments, in a manner that they really cannot do anything on their own. And this, in the views of most Nigerians, has adversely affected development at the local council level.
Reacting to the position of the NGF, Vice Chairman of Senate Committee on Niger Delta Affairs, Nurudeen Abatemi-Usman (PDP, Kogi Central) said the governors do not have the constitutional power to hinder the granting of autonomy to LGs in the ongoing constitution review process.
Abatemi-Usman, whose bill seeking for financial autonomy for local governments had scaled through seconding reading and was referred to the Senate Committee on Constitution Review in March last year, argued that of all the items listed for consideration, nothing could be more necessary than LG autonomy. He observed that the operation of the state/local government joint account as currently practiced was an aberration that must be corrected in the interest of Nigerians, regardless of the position of the governors.
Also, in his reaction, Chairman Senate Committee on Media and Publicity, Senator Eyinanya Abaribe was reported to have said that the position of the governors on local government autonomy is not binding. The Senate spokesman said it is the public opinion expressed through the National Assembly and the various State Assemblies that would determine the autonomy of local government administration, while acknowledging that the governors are however entitled to their notion on the issue.
Minister of Interior, Abba Moro had equally lent his voice to the debate on local government autonomy in an interview. An expert in local government administration, Moro was a council chairman for about eight years and one-time chairman of the Benue State chapter of Association of local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON). He said: “I expect that the framers of the constitution would have gone further than the scanty provisions in section 7 of the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria 1999 to a level where provisions should have been made for the local governments to get their allocation direct from the federation account, for the local governments to exercise jurisdiction over their revenue avenues, and for the local government chairmen to run these local governments as a third tiers… They should be free to be accountable to the people who have elected them.”
Other prominent Nigerians in the likes former President Olusegun Obasanjo, erstwhile Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Senate President Senator Ken Nnamani have likewise not hidden their total support for an autonomous local government system in Nigeria. For instance, Obasanjo who spearheaded the 1976 local government reform, recently, lamented that the essence of creating local governments had been defeated, when he received the national executives of ALGON at his residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
It is my hope therefore that the National Assembly and State Assemblies, who are constitutionally empowered to effect changes in the constitution on behalf the people, would not pander to the whims and caprices of the governors, in their move to continued emasculating local governments.The legislators must know that the people hold them in high esteem. And so, any attempt to disappoint the Nigerian people in order to favour the governors may lead to loss of trust and confidence.
Jegede, a media practitioner, wrote from Abuja