A PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AND FORMER INEC NATIONAL COMMISSIONER, LAI OLURODE IN TODAY’S VIEWPOINT WRITES ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT AUTONOMY A GATEWAY TO ENHANCED DEMOCRATIC DIVIDENDS
Recently, the federal government took the thirty-six state governors to supreme court for illegally withholding funds mean for local governments in their jurisdiction. This is in contravention of section 7 of the 1999 constitution as amended.
The relevant section stipulates that the system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this constitution guaranteed.
It is clear that non democratically constituted local governments are an aberration which deserve no funding from the federal government.
Since the beginning of this democratization processes, state governments have not been relating to local government authorities with respect and dignity deserving of the third tier level of governance.
State governments have been known to be rather arbitrary rather than being constitutional in granting statutory allocations to local governments as and when due.
Also, elections into local governments have rarely been held as they fall due.
In consequence, caretaker committees have been the norms rather the exceptions that they ought to be. Under this condition, it is convenient for local governments to resort to scapegoating in defending their being dysfunctional.
Most Nigerians wondered as to what could be the reason the presidency took the legal remedy to rescue local governments from the jugulars of the state governments.
Regardless of the political party in power, the presidency has come under incessant attacks by Nigerians regarding development issues in Nigeria.
All eyes are on the person of the president. Generally, governors are hardly reckoned with in explaining Nigeria’s predicament with development.
Local government chairmen are perceived as helpless and at the beck and call of governors, indeed, some local chairmen are errand boys of state governors.
The presidency must have reasoned that it was now time to redirect attention to governors and their acts in crippling local governments.
There are three centres of government power in Nigeria and if each centre functions effectively, then the federal government will certainly be less blame worthy.
President bola Ahmed Tinubu, then governor of Lagos state, fought hard at the supreme court through the state attorney general, professor Yemi Osinbajo, to assert the authority of the then Lagos state government to create additional local governments.
The apex court ruled in favour of the Lagos state government and it became the lot of the late president Umaru Yar’adua to release the withheld funds in deference to the verdict by the supreme court.
Nigerians need to give the presidency a pat on the back for initiating this long overdue legal tussle which no president before Tinubu attempted.
This is a far superior response than the resort to self-remedy for which former president Olusegun Obasanjo was castigated when it seized the Lagos state local government funds when the then governor, Bola Tinubu created additional local council development authorities.
Now that the presidency has won this celebrated case against the thirty six state governors, then, local governments would be able to receive their funds directly and henceforth be blamed for non-performance.
The presidency and the governors may then become less of a cynosure.
It is also worthy to note that Nigerians will become the ultimate beneficiaries of the supreme court judgment on local government autonomy. Furthermore, governments at all levels will become more competitive and possibly more responsible.
The presidency should be commended for this resort to the path of civility, law and order.
In conclusion, Nigeria’s democracy will become better strengthened by the outcome of the apex court’s verdict.
