The popular perception of LG system is that local governments are sites of jobs for the boys from generous governors.
The latest in ‘governance news’ in the country is the controversy between on the one hand 36 governors across party lines and on the other hand local government professionals and citizens who believe that functions and funding of local government in a federal republic are due for reform. And the argument of the Governors Forum from a constitutional angle reinforces the need to think anew about how to promote democracy and enrich federal governance in our country, without being resistant to mechanisms to block corruption and without states losing needed influence on local development efforts.
There are too many issues about state and local government relations for our governors to limit arguments about who should manage the funds allocated from national revenue to subnational governments to strict constructionist interpretation of provisions of the constitution in respect of state/local government account. Such a narrow view of which level of government should manage inter-government transfers may eclipse the importance of the role of local government in promoting democracy and development at the grassroots level. The matter at hand should not be just about governance protocols in terms of ‘Transitional versus Operational account.’ More importantly, it should be about constitutional politics, particularly nurturing of a political culture that can respond effectively to citizens’ demands for a federal system that promotes at the same time decentralisation, local accountability, citizen participation, and state-wide integrated development.
Because of the special character of Nigeria’s political history under decades of military dictatorship and subsequent failure of post-military governments to demand de-militarization of the polity, Nigeria since 1999 has been saddled with a constitution not negotiated by free citizens, even one quarter of a century after the exit of the last official military ruler. For the past 24 years, the concept and practice of three tiers of government have defined the governance of the country. Most constitutional federal democracies have two tiers of government. Under such dispensation, any transfer from the central government to the local government, generally seen in such countries as part of state or provincial units, is done through the state or provincial government. In addition, managers of such state or provincial governments generally have no culture other than to pass such transfers in a transparent manner to the designated receiver.
Surprisingly, the authors of Nigeria’s three-tier system have chosen to send local governments’ share of revenue from the Federation Account through the state in what is constitutionally referred to as Joint State and Local Government Account. For many years, nobody bothered about whether money sent to the states for onward transmission to local governments reached those who manage that level of government until the era of fighting corruption emerged. Relatedly, the problem at hand may not be only about whether a federal agency established to frustrate corruption has a role to play in how and when local governments can access the funds constitutionally meant for them, it is also about why state governments would want to be seen as preferring to prevent a federal agency from ensuring that funds allocated from the Federation Account reach the legal recipient intact and in good time.
Since the advent of post-military governance in 1999, the level of government with the least experience of and benefit from democratic governance has been the local government unit. Citizens in most states since 1999 have not enjoyed the right to choose local government chairs and councillors to govern them as they should. Many local governments have been ruled in the last 24 years by appointed chairmen functioning as sole administrators. And local governments that were allowed by governors to hold elections have had an average of one year of democratic rule in the 4-year tenure of most governors. Even the 1999 Constitution that institutionalised three-tier system constructed the local government as the inferior tier that in theory deserves a tenure of three years while the central and state tiers have non-negotiable 4-year tenure.
The consequence of a half-hearted third tier has been that people at the grassroots, where majority of citizens live, exercise their right to govern themselves to the whims and caprices of state executives. Many citizens at the local level consequently feel alienated and thus indifferent to issues they believe to have been designed by military founding fathers of the 4th Republic to be a predatory relationship between the state and the local government. Any surprise that it is only local government civil servants that have expressed any opinion over the controversy between NGF and NFIU on local government funds? The silence from other constituencies including former or current LG sole administrators and the few that have benefited from occasional elections approved by governors captures the extent of the alienation of majority of citizens at the local level. Even ordinary citizens whose lives are supposed to be improved by 22% of the federation’s revenue could care less, apparently because of increasing level of alienation vis-a-vis a non-performing local government system.
The most important issue thrown up by the insistence of NFIU to ensure that local government allocations get to the local communities that own such funds in full and on time is about how to extend proper democratic rule to where it should matter most. Undoubtedly, governors are right to insist that they should have a say in the development of sub-units of their states. The need for governors to be able to coordinate local and state development projects in the interest of proper integration requires that there be no full autonomy for local government, just as the way that states do not generally enjoy independence from the national government. However, there is no wisdom in governors struggling to hold tight to money deposited in a joint account for local governments. What governors ought to worry about is ensuring cooperation as senior partners with local communities to achieve integrated development across the state. The popular perception of LG system is that local governments are sites of jobs for the boys from generous governors.
There are many more important issues that governors ought to consider in relation to fostering inevitable cooperation or collaboration between local communities and the states they constitute in a federation. To protect the integrity of states for much longer, governors may want to call for a review of the military policy of allocating 22% of Federation’s revenue to 774 local governments, where much of the funds go into sustaining a traditional layer of bureaucracy. For example, why should the country get stuck to monthly or quarterly allocations to 774 local governments to pamper traditional rulers in a republic and at a time the nation’s economy is being re-designed for productivity rather than spending windfalls from petroleum? Governors ought to worry about accountability and transparency at the local level, rather than about verbal gymnastics of ‘Transitional and Operational bank accounts.’
Thus far, it is reassuring that 36 governors from different political parties are united on the danger in allowing any agency of the federal government to toy with any provision of the constitution in respect of the supervisory power of a state over its local governments. However, given the reluctance of post-military leaders to listen in the past to citizens’ demand for referendum on issues of importance to citizens, the current governors’ enthusiasm to prevent what might feel like de-coupling state and local governance ought to encourage citizens to urge their governors to initiate bills that can correct the anomalies in the 1999 constitution, especially the insistence on three autonomous tiers of government.
It is important for governors and citizens to imagine that there may be dangers or disadvantages—cultural, political, and economic—in sticking to three autonomous tiers in a multiethnic federation with plural worldviews or cultural and social orientations. In the long run, any effort to break the Siamese connection between the state and the local government is likely to cause more problems than it may solve in the short-term. Governors have already demonstrated readiness to protect the interest of states as they see them. In the spirit of avoiding short-termism, the civil society and individual citizens in each state ought to urge their governors to refrain from the wrong problematique. What governors ought to defend or prevent is not constitutional mistakes of the past; governors ought to call for constitutional amendments that can lead the country back to a well-coordinated and productive two-tier governance system that has brought progress and stability to advanced federal democracies.
