Ogun State governor, Ibikunle Amosun struck the right chord last week when he lent his weight to the agitation for local government autonomy in the country. That was not all. He equally had pricking words for those of his colleagues opposed to it.
Hear him: “I support local government autonomy. The autonomy issue is in my own interest. Some governors said that granting autonomy to local governments will not favour them. Those governors that the autonomy thing will not favour are those governors that deduct from local government funds”.
He has said it all. Apparently drawing from President Buhari’s inaugural speech in which he promised to ensure probity and accountability at all tiers of government, Amosun touched the heart of the matter when he fingered duplicity as the leitmotif for some of his colleagues’ opposition to autonomy. Now one of theirs has spoken so forthrightly on the issue, we can now fathom why the local governments in many states have proved incapable of rising up to their statutory duties.
In that speech, Buhari had said that though there are constitutional limits to the powers of the three tiers of government, he would not close his eyes to what is happening at the states and local governments especially with the operations of the Joint Account.
This has been interpreted by many as an indication that the era of state governors unduly dipping their hands into the funds of the local governments will soon be over. That will be a great relief. No doubt, the joint account system has been variously abused. Instead of the process ensuring that funds meant for the local governments are deployed for meaningful development, some of the governors have turned round to appropriate them for purposes other than that for which they were meant for.
What we have seen since the return of democracy in 1999, is a situation in which the state governors appropriate these funds and only remit to the local councils any amount it pleased them. This has left the local governments increasingly incapable of discharging their statutory functions.
Not unexpectedly, agitations have arisen regarding the desirability of the joint account system in the face of the interferences and withholding of funds meant for the development of the local governments. That has also been the basis for the raging demands for local government autonomy. Not only do the state governments through the powers conferred on the state assemblies by Section (7) of the constitution incapacitate the effective operations of the councils, some have gone ahead to reduce their tenure to enable them take charge of the funds accruing from the federation account.
The first set of elected local government officials in 1999 were supposed to serve for three years. Since then, state assemblies, goaded by the governors have reduced such tenure, some of them to one year. Even then, local government elections are rarely held and when it pleases them to do so, it is at the whims and caprices of the state governments. What has been in vogue is the aberration called transition committees- a subterfuge for handpicking local government functionaries who do the bidding of the governors. This is so despite the fact that the constitution guarantees a local government system by democratically elected local government councils.
Questions have been raised as to the desirability of retaining the local governments as the third tier of government in the face of the refusal of some governors to have in place democratically elected councils. Constant interference with local government funds by governors has also been an issue. The continued relevance of the joint account system given that its operations have been at cross purposes with the spirits guiding the delineation of the councils as the third tier of government has also come under serious challenge. All these are clear indications that our local government system is sick and therefore in urgent need of a dose of therapy both on a short and long terms.
Those opposed to the independence of the local government base their arguments on some warped, unverifiable and tenuous grounds. They allege among others, immaturity of the local governments and their leadership to be left unchecked by the state governments. They also cite aspects of the constitution that empowers the state government through the state assemblies to regulate operations at that level.
The issue of immaturity is neither here nor there. At best, such a sweeping conclusion is nothing but a figment of educated guess. Sadly, empiricism places very low value on matters of educated guess.
The conclusion runs into bigger problem if it conveys the impression that state governors are better managers of funds and their mentoring is required for effective deployment of local government funds. This suggestion pales into insignificance when weighed against the monumental corruption that goes on at the state levels.
Just last week, the EFCC rolled out a list of governors who served between 1999 and 2007 that are currently facing prosecution. It also reeled out some of the properties so far recovered from some of them. Both the number of former governors under trial, the quantum of property and money involved put a lie to any claim that they are better managers of public funds. There is therefore no justifiable reason why they should be allowed to continue appropriating local government funds to help themselves. The spirit of the joint account system has been abused and bastardized by some state governors for self-serving reasons. That has been the basis for their continued opposition to local government autonomy. That is the point Amosun has put very succinctly and he spoke the minds of many.
Moreover, the local government system has been recognized as the fastest vehicle to convey development to the grassroots. This is especially so, as the boundaries of the 774 local governments coincide with the boundaries of this country. Thus, any development strategy that effectively targets that level of government with a high degree of success, would ipso facto translate to the development of the entire country.
That underscores the importance of the local government system. It is for the same reason that more discerning and enterprising states have gone further to create local government development centres. It would therefore smack of a huge contradiction for state governors that have gone ahead to create development centres because of their capacity to quicken development, to now turn around and oppose local government autonomy. That was the background from which Amosun was speaking.
If the immaturity of the local governments being bandied is referenced upon the quality of leadership at that level, the governors are solely to blame. They are to blame for handpicking surrogates and all manner of stooges to stand for elections that have been predetermined by the so-called state independent electoral commissions. They are to blame for not allowing real elections to take place at that level. So if the competences of the elected or appointed local government officials are in doubt, the governors should take the blame. They cannot turn around and hide under some of the monsters they created to fault the capacity and ability of that system to function optimally.
