What to do about local governments

That argument is as potent and valid today as when it was first made in the context of several local government reforms that have shaped its existing mode, its unfortunately ambivalent status in the operative Constitution notwithstanding.So it was akin to running against the strong tide of democratic traditions that a committee of the ongoing […]

That argument is as potent and valid today as when it was first made in the context of several local government reforms that have shaped its existing mode, its unfortunately ambivalent status in the operative Constitution notwithstanding.
So it was akin to running against the strong tide of democratic traditions that a committee of the ongoing National Conference would make a recommendation the summary of which is that the 774 local governments in the country should be abolished.
The Committee on Political Restructuring and Forms of Government jointly chaired by General Ike Nwachukwu (rtd) and Alhaji Mohammed Kumalia, further recommended that the administration of local government councils be transferred to state houses of assembly.
It demanded that the list of local governments as contained in the First Schedule, Part 1 of the 1999 Constitution should be removed and transferred to the states to be covered by a law of the legislature of the state.
According to the committee, the move would empower states to determine the number, if any was desired, of local councils they should have. The recommendation, if it is carried through and somehow implemented, would further downgrade the status of local governments, removing them as the third tier in the current federal setup, and blocking direct funding from the federation account.
It is true that the local government structure as provided for in the Constitution has placed this otherwise critical tier of government in an ambivalent position. While local councils are supposed to be elected, in practice they have become appendages of state governments.
Indeed, the control of local councils by state governors is so pervasive that they can determine whether and when elections of council officials should hold. Very few states have conducted elections into local councils since 1999. Such elections are conducted by state electoral commissions whose officials are appointees of the state governors and therefore beholden to them.
As third tier of government, funding for local governments comes principally from the federation account. Virtually all the states arrogate to themselves the right to manage local government funds, in most cases denying the befits of the work of local councils to trickle down to the communities in the form of municipal projects like markets, culverts, primary schools, primary health centres, etc.
It is true that most of the council officials have turned their secretariats into occasional avenues where they meet to share proceeds from the local government joint accounts with state governments, and other revenue sources like market and park fees, but this could have happened only with the connivance of state governors.
Instead of the call to scrap local governments in the country, delegates to the National Conference should press for more autonomy for them, reconstitution of state electoral commissions to make their operations less dependent on the prerogative of state governors.
Any meaningful restructuring of government should be to make governance more accessible to the grassroots. To that end, it would be far better to recommend the strengthening of local councils by reducing the powers of both the state and federal governments and devolving them to local governments. And it makes more sense too.  If the purpose of government is to cater to needs of the majority of the people, then it stands to reason that local governments are best suited to deliver.
Nigeria’s practice of presidential system in a federal system has not been a runaway success.  Experience has shown that consideration is devoted mainly to the building of gigantic projects in the big cities that benefit only a tiny segment of the population, with the hinterland virtually neglected because state governors are too busy with the next elections to bother.
Compared with the recent past when native authorities functioned well in a federal structure of a few regions and the centre, communities had little need to migrate to cities in search of better economic prospects, as is the case today.
There is more justification for the continuing existence of local governments-and devolving more powers to them-than can be made for retaining the present 36-state structure.