By:
Nurudeen Dauda
nurudeendauda24@gmail.com
nurudeendauda24@yahoo.com
nurudeendauda.blogspot.com
To start with, after the much celebrated Supreme Court judgement backing the full financial "autonomy" of Local Governments there are still other fundamental issues that must be addressed for us to get it right in our LGAs administrations as follows: one; Local Government elections, two; the issue of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and three; Local Governments reform. It is apt to state that we still have a very long long way to go!
Firstly, the issue of free, fair, and credible elections in
Nigeria remain a major challenge, but it is even "worst" at the local
governments levels where the State Independent Electoral Commissions conduct
elections. It is "unheard" of and or "unthinkable" even in
the so-called advanced democracies of the world to have a scenario where all
elections are won by a single political party in an election as it does happen
in the Nigerian LGAs elections.
There is a near "consensus" that local government
system in Nigeria is being abused by states governors perhaps due to lacuna in
our constitution. States governors are being accused continually for
"withholding" LGAs allocations using the States and Local Governments
Joint Account provided by the section 162 sub-section (6) of the 1999
constitution as amended. There are equally the allegations of where the States
governors release the LGAs funds they often direct the LGAs chairmen to payback
those funds into certain unidentified accounts.
For us to get it right, we must insist on credible elections
at LGAs levels. Elections at LGAs levels in Nigeria are the worst. Credible
elections are very critical in ensuring Good Governance at all levels of
governance not only at the LGAs levels. Arguably there is nearly no free, and
fair elections in virtually all the elections conducted by the States
Independent Electoral Commissions which is partly responsible for Bad
Governance at the LGAs levels.
For as long as elections are not "credible" at the
LGAs levels the full financial autonomy granted to the LGAs through the 11th
July, 2024 Supreme Court judgement will only mean "little" or
"nothing" to the LGAs administrations because the states governors
will continue to "plant" and or "imposed" their
"stooges" as LGAs chairmen via their usual "Kangaroo"
elections being conducted by the States Independent Electoral Commissions. If this
continues, even if the LGAs' allocations are directly paid into to the LGAs'
accounts from the Federation Account the funds will still find its ways back to
the governors through the planting of their "stooges"as product of
"Kangaroo" elections.
In my view, we must as a people and as a country decide on
what to do with the States Independent Electoral Commissions? Can we empower
them to conduct credible elections at LGAs levels? Or we should just abolish
them for INEC?
In my thought, there is a great deal of "lacuna"
in the 1999 constitution which pose a "serious threat" to the
development of LGAs. The LGAs are subjected to a lot of control by the states
governments. For instance, the Section 7 sub-section 6 (b) of the 1999
constitution states that the House of Assembly of a state shall make provisions
for statutory allocation of public revenue to local government councils within
the state. Where are the LGAs legislative bodies?
Secondly, Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) is another
issue. It is sad to note that from the federal, states and to the local
governments we depend largely on Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC)
with almost modern 70% as our sources of revenues . There is a general great
deal of problem on revenue generation by both the federal and the states
governments much less the LGAs either due to our mono-culture economy or
corruption and or both. With the exception of Lagos state there is hardly a state
that can pay its monthly salaries without FAAC allocations. Majority of our
states governments much less our LGAs have less than 30% as IGR contributions
to their annual revenues.
States governments, especially those in the urban areas with
high density economic activities are notorious in muscling LGAs from generating
revenue on items; such as: motor parks, outdoor advertising, and rents etc. The
function of LGAs as provided in the 5th Schedule of the 1999 constitution
especially on the areas of "jurisdiction" in terms of revenue
generation must be clearly amended in order to provide a clear cut areas of
"jurisdiction" with those of states governments to allow the LGAs
generate revenue for their development.
Thirdly, for us to get it right we really need Local
Governments Reform. In fact reform in our LGAs is what we badly need, but we
sadly lack. We must decide based on our peculiarities whether we still need a
uniform system of local governments throughout the country or not. After all it
is even a fundamental argument in federal system of government.
For instance the 23 -man 2018 APC's Committee on
Restructuring headed by the former governor of Kaduna state Mal. Nasir Ahmad
El-Rufa'i CON recommended that there should be no uniform system of Local
Governments in the country. The committee recommended for the removal of LGAs
from the 1999 constitution so that there will be no more FAAC allocations to
the LGAs . The committee further recommended that states governments should
determine the existence, size, and the numbers of LGAs they need in their states
based on their needs, resources and or economic viability.
In conclusion, it is a fact that there are a lot of revenue
leakages in the LGAs administrations. Most of our LGAs are over staffed with a
lot of redundancy , truancy, workers absenteeism , low productivity and poor
Internally Generated Revenues (IGRs). It is sad to note that even our states
governments heavily rely on FAAC allocations much less our LGAs. Let us make
our LGAs self sustaining through sound reforms. We need reforms in terms of
their structure, personnel, internal revenue, and democratic governance .
There is a near "consensus" among experts and
analysts that the most "dysfunctional tier" of government in Nigeria
is the local government administration. It has often been described by many
scholars as a "collection" or "sharing" and or
"stealing" centres.
May God bless Nigeria!
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