Category: Saturday

I was not surprised that the Secretary to the Lagos State Government, (SSG), Mr Tunji Bello, was not particularly enamoured of this column’s endorsement last week of the view by the eminent American political scientist, Professor Richard Sklar, that the specific provision in the 1999 constitution for the existence and functioning of the country’s local governments as a separate tier of government and a federating unit in its own right is an exceptional and commendable Nigerian contribution to the development of federalist thought and practice. Engaging this writer extensively on his views in this regard during the week, he was of the emphatic opinion that the present local government structure contributes to the unhealthy over-centralizing trends in the constitution that erodes from the autonomy of the sub-national units of government, and imposes an organizational and structural rigidity that sap grassroots developmental creativity to the country’s detriment.

Mr Bello’s position is quite consistent with his record over the years as a progressive journalist and lawyer, a pro-democratic activist during the struggle against military dictatorship and commissioner for the environment in Lagos State particularly in an Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration that had to engage Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s imperial presidency in fierce legal battles to enforce the state’s constitutional rights. His perceptions of  the constituent elements of ‘true federalism’ have also no doubt been reinforced by his experience as a key functionary under a governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, who in this dispensation, has demonstrated an unprecedented and incomparable capacity to galvanize the local governments as effective vehicles of grassroots transformation without being unduly overbearing or stifling.

Rather than enhance rapid grassroots development, which is the aim of seeking to make local governments an autonomous third tier of government through direct funding from the Federation Account, Mr Bello avers that this can only create the danger of the federal government maintaining a stranglehold on the local governments in a political culture like ours characterized by excessive partisanship and unbridled impunity. Thus, we would be substituting the perceived undue dominance of state governments over the local governments for an even more distant and dysfunctional tyranny of the centre over what should be grassroots administration.  This was best evident when the Federal Government under Obasanjo arbitrarily and illegally seized statutory allocation due local governments in Lagos State for over three years in utter defiance of the Supreme Court, which ruled that it had no powers to do so.

Some of the drawbacks of a completely autonomous local government structure as the purported third tier of the federation, according to Mr Bello, are avoidable conflicts when the party controlling a local government differs from that in control of the state, the opportunity for a mischievous and unscrupulous  president at the centre to destabilize a state through the manipulation of a local government controlled by his party as well as the blunting of developmental initiatives by the local governments, which come to become chronically dependent on hand outs from the federation account rather than developing the capacity to exploit revenue generating opportunities within their jurisdiction.

This, he argues, is quite apart from the near physical, administrative and operational impracticability of running a local government in utter isolation from the overall ecology of the state within which it is territorially embedded. If I understood Mr Bello’s position clearly, the nature of federal-state relations as federating units cannot be equated to that of state-local government relations. The former will necessarily and inherently be less asymmetrically weighted against states than the latter is against local governments for the sheer reason of differential capacities in terms of quality of human resource personnel, fiscal and material resource endowment, organizational efficacy and disincentives of economies of scale.

Thus, while federalism offers a solution to the problem of over-centralization through the considerable devolution of powers, responsibilities and resources to the states, we must avoid the no less debilitating effects of excessive atomization as a result of reliance on uncoordinated and fragmented local governments as units of development. This explains why geographically and culturally contiguous states are now gradually coalescing into informal, integrated regional economic groupings without surrendering their political autonomy in order to tap collective zonal strengths towards accelerating their individual rates of development.

Professor Eghosa Osagie in his book, ‘Crippled Giant: Nigeria since Independence’ (page 118) acknowledges the difficulties encountered by the drafters of the 1979 constitution in their bid to effect fundamental structural change  to guarantee local government as the third tier of government. Thus, although the local government were given stipulated areas of legislative competence and were also entitled to statutory revenue allocation from the federation account, they were “in important ways…still under the control of state governments – e.g. state governments were required to pass laws to ensure their very existence”. Beyond this, under the 1999 constitution, local government statutory allocation from the federation account is paid into a ‘State Joint Local Government Account’ and distributed to the local governments in such a manner as is determined by the state House of Assembly. Most governors are, however, accused of diverting fund from this account for other uses to the detriment of grassroots development.

Under the current arrangement, local governments are listed in the constitution and no new local governments can be created and constitutionally recognized unless they are approved by the National Assembly and the constitution amended accordingly. This is why the 37 new Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) created in Lagos State by the Tinubu administration, bringing the total number of local government councils in the state to 57, which have become viable units of grassroots development, are yet to be constitutionally recognized by the National Assembly for simply partisan political reasons and this even after the supposedly progressive All Progressives Congress (APC) has assumed power at the centre.

Thus, the current number and distribution of local governments across the country reflects neither rhyme nor reason but continue to mirror the arbitrariness and biases of the military era. I can thus understand why Mr Polycarp Onwubia (JP) Features Editor of Orient Daily, sent me an angry text message in response to my column: “You disappointed me today in your column, ‘Nigeria’s federal Exceptionalism’. When have you become a parrot of northern Moslems (caliphate)? Haba, Segun! How are the mighty fallen. It was the military that created three tiers of government. It was never debated by the politicians (military is not elite). It’s the caliphate that conspired to bastardize the federal system as practiced in the first republic”.

 As I responded to him, however, “the 1999 constitution is virtually a carbon copy of the 1979 constitution with only marginal differences between the two. The 1999 constitution was largely the product of deliberations by some of the country’s best and brightest brains from all walks of life though it took place under the aegis of the military.  I really don’t know what an autonomous, financially viable, transparent and accountable local government system that is constitutionally guaranteed has to do with the caliphate…”.

In a telephone conversation during the week with Professor Tam David West, the renowned virologist at the University of Ibadan, who was one of the 49 members of the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) that produced a draft of the 1979 constitution, he emphasized that there was absolutely nothing fraudulent about the document, which the 1999 constitution simply mirrors. There was not a single military man among the 49 members of the CDC and it included such legal luminaries as the late Chief Rotimi Williams and Professor Ben Nwabueze.

The work of the CDC was informed and enriched by an intensive and exhaustive state by state national discourse organized and coordinated by the now defunct Daily Times, which was later compiled into a useful working compendium. A Constituent Assembly popularly elected on a non-party basis later deliberated on and ratified the proposals of the CDC, which was then promulgated into law by the Supreme Military Council. All the major principles of federalism, separation of powers, local government autonomy etc thus had the imprimatur of popular affirmation hence the legitimacy of the phrase ‘We the people’ in its preamble, Professor David West submitted.

Mr Tunji Bello’s compelling case for a fundamentally restructured federation based on a leaner, smarter and more efficient centre as well as enhanced state powers, responsibilities and fiscal autonomy is, in my view, not incompatible with a reasonably free, administratively efficient and electorally credible local government system operating within the context of well-conceived and coordinated state and regional economic developmental plans.   This will not, however, be achieved on a platter of gold but will require back breaking work and organization as there are also forces interested, and with equal or even more determination, in maintaining the status quo.

A distinctive feature of Professor Bolaji Akinyemi’s political thought and praxis, either in the critical roles he has played as Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Ibrahim Babangida military regime, top member of the pro-democracy (National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) or simply as political scientist and public intellectual, is his unwavering faith in the possibilities of Nigeria. This is even as he has never hidden his disdain as regards the scandalous squandering of resources and opportunities that have been the lot of post-colonial Nigeria over the past five decades and seven years. It was thus not fortuitous that his tenure as Foreign Affairs Minister, for instance, witnessed such ambitious initiatives as the Technical Aid Corp (TAC) scheme, the Concert of Medium powers as well as the relentless advocacy for Nigeria to acquire nuclear capability albeit for peaceful purposes as a psychological fillip to the black man everywhere.

Akinyemi’s penchant for not allowing the country’s ills and challenges, which he frankly, even brutally, acknowledges – corruption, maladministration, ethno-regional strife, misapplication of resources, insecurity etc – to dampen his ardor for Nigeria’s potentials as a real giant not just of Africa but also as an aspirant to a critical global role was evident in his 2016 convocation lecture at the University of Ibadan titled ‘Nigerian Exceptionalism: Nigerian Quest for World Leadership’.

Yet, many Nigerians in their merciless self excoriation at their country’s social, political and economic shortcomings hardly give her any chance of overcoming current travails and actualizing her admittedly immense potentials. Those who are reluctant to admit that there is anything like a Nigerian exceptionalism, which could mark a departure from the accepted norm and chart an innovative path for others to follow, would readily perceive Akinyemi’s optimism as illusionary. I beg to disagree. Without strong belief in the positive qualities and diverse endowments of the Nigerian polity, including its numerous and highly resourceful population, our collective will to act decisively towards overcoming current limiting debilities will be effectively paralyzed if not irretrievably truncated.

The idea or undeniable reality of Nigeria’s exceptionalism, particularly in the areas of political and federalist thought as well as constitutional engineering, was brought forcefully home to me on re-reading an essay titled ‘Foundations of Federal Government in Nigeria’ by renowned Africanist scholar and author of the classic, ‘Nigerian Political Parties’, Professor Richard Sklar, which was published in a 2004 collection of essays in honour of another eminent Nigerian political scientist, Professor Oyeleye Oyediran. We often tend to blame what are essentially our behavioural and attitudinal lapses on constitutional arrangements, governmental patterns or structural defects, which are themselves manifestations of deeper sociological and psychological root causes. Hence our unending oscillation of advocacy for either presidential or parliamentary systems, two party or multiparty systems, highly centralized, decentralized federal or even outright confederal constitutions, rotational presidency, reversion to regionalism and so on.

If I understand him correctly, Professor Sklar’s well considered position is that, in terms of creative constitutional thought and praxis, something good and novel but largely unsung and unheralded has indeed come out of Nigeria. In Sklar’s words, “Nigeria is the world’s fifth largest federation after India, the United States, Brazil and Russia. Over the past quarter of a century, Nigerians have pioneered two main innovations in federalist thought and practice; they are known as the principle of federal character and the three-tier federation. Both ideas were introduced into public discourse at roughly the same time in the mid-1970s, an especially creative period for Nigerian constitutional thinkers”. On the constitutional recognition of Local Government as the third tier of government, Sklar contended that “Arguably, the inclusion of a constitutional guarantee for ‘democratically elected local governments’ by name, established principles of local government organization and supporting their viability by means of direct federal funding, should be reckoned an original Nigerian contribution to the science of government”.

Pointing out that this innovation in Nigerian constitutional thought marks a departure from the conventional federal practice of rendering local governments totally subordinate to the whims and caprices of states, Sklar noted that its chief aim, which was in response to experience during the first republic, was to protect local governments from threats of abolition and dissolution by over bearing state governments. Contrary to popular clamors in contemporary political discourse, therefore, the autonomy granted local governments by the extant 1999 constitution marks a significant step forward in the country’s political development particularly in terms of transparency, effective grassroots governance and accelerated development at the lowest rungs of administration in the country.

What this means is that seeking to subject the local governments, once again, to the financial and administrative stranglehold of state governments can only be a regressive and not a progressive step. The policy implication of this is the urgent imperative to strengthen financial autonomy of the third tier of government as well as reinforce mechanisms of accountability at this level especially through institutional reforms that enhance the capacity of State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIEC) to conduct genuinely free and fair elections into local government councils. Despite the brazen theft of humongous public funds at the Federal and state government levels over the years, the no less substantial but hardly discernible pillaging of fiscal resources at the grassroots level of government, perhaps takes a greater toll on Nigeria’s developmental enterprise and the wellbeing of millions of Nigerians at the very base of the governance pyramid than is recognized.

There is the need to jettison the inferiority complex, which assumes that we cannot chart an exceptional path of constitutional arrangement or governmental practice that departs from the norm and mirrors the peculiar historical trajectory and responds to institutional challenges that confront our polity. Apart from the three – tier constitutionally guaranteed levels of government, Sklar argues, that the federal character provision in Nigeria’s extant constitution is another exceptional and unique contribution to the development of federalist thinking and practice. Sklar notes that “Like the device of “double devolution” and its potential consequence of a three-tier federation, the principle of federal character is a distinctive Nigerian contribution to federalist thought”.

As we all know, the federal character provision in Nigeria’s constitution is meant to ensure equitable representation of diverse ethno-cultural groups in the composition of governmental structures at all levels- Federal, state and local. Contrary to the view in some quarters, the federal character requirement in apportioning appointments and allocating other valued resources by the state is not necessarily antithetical to or incompatible with the criterion of merit quite apart from boosting a feeling of inclusiveness by all in a diverse, plural and complex polity like ours.

Many students and observers of Nigerian federalism have dismissed some unique aspects of federalist innovation in the country’s constitution because of their departure from the practice in older federations particularly that of the United States on which the Nigerian federal variant is patterned. As Rufus Davis has pertinently observed, however, “For as all men don’t build their house just according to that model which the rules of architecture prescribe, so no federal constitutional system…has been built, or indeed could be built, in the mirror image of US model…In a word, each system has adapted the US model of its time, precisely as the United States composed its constitution in response to its own imperatives of necessity and circumstances”.

I remember, for instance, how the late legal titan, Chief Rotimi Williams (SAN), speaking on behalf of the political pressure group, ‘The Patriots’ once famously dismissed the preamble of the 1999 constitution, which claims to derive its legitimacy from ‘we the people’ as a fraud because of its largely military provenance. But the lesson throughout history is that constitution making is most times an elitist enterprise. Not many people are equipped with the requisite expertise to participate meaningfully in the exercise quite apart from the fact that millions of citizens do not have the necessary sense of political efficacy to consider it worth their while to engage the constitution drafting process. In any case, the drafters of the 1999 constitution did not drop from the moon and their exertions were not based on a constitutional tabula rasa. Their deliberations were no doubt informed by previous numerous constitutional drafting efforts spanning the pre-colonial to preceding constitution drafting exercises in the post-colonial dispensation.

Yes, by all means let us learn from the pitfalls in our current constitutional practice and make necessary amendments and changes to strengthen and deepen its democratic and federalist content. But in doing so, we must not fall into the trap of denigrating any aspect of our constitution that is a departure from the accepted norm but is derivative of our peculiar ecological realities.