The Supreme Court verdict, on “council autonomy”, was not unlike the deus-ex-machina, in ancient Greek drama.
The governors, alleged parasitic butterflies, feasting on council funds as sweet nectar, blew the cash on anything but the grassroots — bad! So, the Federal Government moved to wire direct money to the 774 local councils the 1999 Constitution listed.
But the governors, pushing the good, old federal doctrine, and never shy to push their right to run things within their states, would be damned to let their probosces off that sweet, old nectar. So, a sweet-sour political stalemate was afoot.
Then came, wham! — the Supreme Court verdict.
The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) went to the Supreme Court to settle by law, what the federating partners could not settle by open politics — and mutual good faith.
Enter, the apex court’s verdict as legal deus-ex-machina!
Well, as Chinua Achebe said in that Igbo proverb his numerous writings popularized, Eneke had learnt to shoot without missing, since birds had learnt to fly without perching!
The governors licked their wounds in silence, strafed by a hostile public opinion — and rightly so — for why would they be so unconscionable over council funds?
In own corner, the Federal Government savoured sweet victory, rolling out positive — and plausible — vibes: further enlisting and endearing the benefitting councils in its “Big Daddy loves you” camp, with the hated and “thieving” governors still sulking.
That party was on — loud in Abuja! — when Chukwuma Soludo, the Anamba governor, threw in his spanner from Awka: a putative counter-deus, on the legislative front! By this Soludo challenge, might the governors corral back what they thought was lost?
Drama! Could this high drama make nugatory the Supreme Court verdict, and yet render Abuja’s “council autonomy” victory pyrrhic? Drama!
The Anambra State House of Assembly just passed a law, mandating Anambra local government councils to pool a certain percentage of their directly wired Federation Account earnings into the Anambra Joint State-Local Government Account for common projects!
Will the Supreme Court now rule that states don’t have control over the local governments within their territories? Or that state legislatures can no longer make laws “for the good and order” of local governments under their jurisdiction?
Or will the Supreme Court, to consummate its earlier verdict on “council autonomy”, now oust powers given states by the Constitution?
Or that the states (read the governors) have lost the right to coordinate common services and projects in their domains, simply because the apex court had granted their local governments “autonomy”?
Interesting perspectives!
Still, before memory-challenged folks start hailing Soludo as a rare lion for federalism, remember that this same Soludo flexed own the-centre-is-everything muscle, as former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s National Economic Adviser (NEA).
Back then, Prof. Soludo theorized on NEEDS — the Nigerian Economic Empowerment Development Strategy — and pushed that NEEDS be rammed down as SEEDS (States Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy) and LEEDS (Local Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy), for these same 774 local governments the 1999 Constitution listed!
To be sure, NEEDS and its SEEDS and LEEDS variants were no crime. On the contrary, they were a brilliant piece of economic theorizing, without which a polity would perhaps never locate an effective compass to develop.
But the dissonance — in a supposed federal set-up — was its one-central-shoe-fits-all diktat: a roaring contradiction to the federal principle, that provides for local diversities.
So, for Soludo — from that dashing central prefect of old, shoving NEEDS down states’ and local governments’ throats; to a federal champion from Awka, now pushing back on states’ rights over councils, thus tackling “autonomy” — what has changed?
Isn’t his old NEEDS temper more in tune with the Supreme Court verdict, than the law that the Anambra legislature just passed, and he gleefully signed?
What’s that blinding flash, en route to Damascus, that has changed his Saul to Paul, when the issue is states’ rights, against a central Nigerian Leviathan?
Well, from a central hireling of the Obasanjo era, Soludo is now elected state governor — and pronto, has forgotten the sacred centralization dogma that propelled his NEEDS thunder! Is that necessarily bad, though?
Soludo played the role his principal expected of him as NEA. That was in the past. Now, as own principal, he’s trying to cut the best deal for his Anambra folks, as their governor.
If that past badly jars with his present, it is what it is. But it shows that the more roles change, as individuals climb up the political ladder, the more the unresolved federal question stares everyone starkly in the face! These changing roles make the federal principle even more immutable!
Which goes right back to council autonomy.
Though many voices, playing the propaganda of the moment, try to ram down the idea of the local governments as a so-called “third tier”, councils belong more to states — and should be their sole business — than they do to the Federal Government.
Yes, it’s execrable conduct from governors for purloining council funds and leaving the grassroots in the lurch. Highly condemnable behaviour.
But it’s doubtful if the solution to that is a mechanistic “autonomy” that virtually “tears” councils from states as Abuja’s golden “third tier”.
That no two federal states are exactly the same beg the question. Councils, counties and equivalents may be useful administrative divisions in all federations. But in no federation — none! — could they claim a seat at the table as federating partners.
That would stand logic on its head, because only the federating partners, states — not the sovereign federation, which the Federal Government governs — are carved into councils and counties for closer local government administrations.
Federalism — as Ripples often loves to insist — is a concept and not a mere badge, that could be stamped on exigencies, and everyone would live merrily ever after!
The very idea, of a valid “third tier”, jars against that basic federal principle. Yet, it’s on that “tier” that “council autonomy” — absolutely outside states’ control — is hooked.
That’s the lethal — if not fatal — challenge the new Soludo law poses to “council autonomy”. On that, the Supreme Court has its job cut out!
With the Awka challenge, the polity awaits, with quake or relish, a hot judicial battle –quake or relish, depending on which camp you belong!
