Tag: local government system

Constitutional arrangements such as federalism or unitary states or forms of government such as parliamentary or presidential systems or hybrid governmental systems are made for man and not vice versa. Thus, parliamentarian, presidential, unitary or federalist principles of governance are not abstract ideals that all nations must strictly abide by but rather evolve in most societies as outcomes of their peculiar evolutionary experiences. Nigerian federalism and by extension her local government structure bear inevitably the imprint of her experience under military rule.

It could be true that the ruling military elite in the nearly three decades since they were at the helm of affairs in Nigeria were inclined towards emphasizing centralizing trends in Nigerian federalism as a result of the military organization’s centralist hierarchical ethos. But it is no less true that other critical stakeholders like elements of the political class, some intellectuals who were involved in governance in military dictatorships, and the top hierarchy of the civil service all supported the weakening of the rigid regional system of the first republic, increased states creation as well as the shift to the presidential form of government because of the perceived role of the political structures of the first republic in orienting the country towards disintegrating centrifugal tendencies inimical to national unity and cohesion.

It is all too common to blame the military for the shift in the dominant political thought that shaped the political institutions of the first republic. But this perception of the country’s problems and how to resolve them through the constitutional provisions of the 1979 Constitution, a document drawn up by 49 ‘wise men’ comprising some of the country’s best and brightest judicial minds, exemplary intellectuals, and statesmen and which forms the core of the extant 1999 Constitution (as amended) were considered by the conventional wisdom of the period to be the right way to go in correcting the ills that brought an end to the first republic and drove the nation inexorably into civil war.

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Indeed, although he refused to serve as a member of the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) headed by Chief Rotimi Williams (SAN), that avatar of Nigerian federalism, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, publicly admitted that most of the proposals of the CDC reflected his views and suggestions in his book ‘Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution’.

Thus, even though it may depart from the experience of other federal systems with particular reference to the local government as the third tier of government which is designed by the architects of the constitution to exercise a reasonable degree of autonomy to perform with minimal encumbrances from other levels of government, this is in no way an intrinsic inhibition against the local councils being able to perform optimally and achieving concrete developmental goals at the grassroots. As we noted last week, for instance, Brazil is one federal system that has the local government councils as their third tier of government apparently with beneficial impacts on governance.

The federal purists contend that seeking to make the local governments an autonomous third tier as the 1999 Constitution (as amended) does, amounts to an absurdity. But they proffer no argument as to why it is logically necessary for states, which are part and parcel of the federation territorially, to enjoy a reasonable degree of administrative and constitutional autonomy while the local governments which are inextricable parts of the states where they are located cannot. It is not enough to assert that local government councils must mandatorily be subordinated to states as an inevitable logic of the federalist ethos perhaps as handed over to us by some constitutional deity whose word is law and must be obeyed. The same argument that makes this case for states’ autonomy can also be made for local governments and may even be considered to be a deepening of the federalist logic.

In any case, critics of the constitution as regards its provisions for the establishment, management, and funding of this tier of government are utterly unfair in my view. In Section 7 (1) the Constitution provides in unequivocal terms that “the system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is guaranteed under this Constitution”. It further states that “Accordingly, the Government of every State shall…ensure their existence under a Law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils”.

Some scholars such as the late Professor Adeoye AKinsanya, see a contradiction in this position of the Constitution as regards the existence and functioning of local government councils. In his words, “To be sure, the system of local government by democratically elected LGCs guaranteed by the framers of the Constitution is negated by the same provision of empowering a State Government, using its legislative arm, to enact a Law providing for the “establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such council”, meaning that a state had the power of life and death over every local government council”.

It is difficult to agree with the submission of the Professor. The only constitutionally recognized local government councils are those democratically elected as clearly stipulated by the Constitution. Once a free, fair, and credible poll has been held and the council’s officers have been elected, their powers and existence flow from the votes of the people and these entities can no longer be legitimately dissolved by governors as currently happens arbitrarily and replaced by caretaker committees.

The Constitution provides for no lacuna to give governors any leeway to such recourses as the dissolution of elected local government councils, an action that is tantamount to annulling the will of the people and to derogate from the inalienable right of voters in this regard. But the pending decision of the Supreme Court which is being awaited in the case between the federal and state governments should put this matter to rest.

In also giving the state powers, through the legislature to enact laws for the establishment, structure, composition, funding, and functions of the local councils, the framers of the Constitution pay obeisance to the perceived federalist fetishism. But this provision stands on the leg that the councils must be democratically elected. Some have advocated that amounts of money due to the local councils should simply be paid to state government accounts with the governors determining not only the number of local councils but also how much to allocate to the councils.

This essentially is what obtains at the moment. The funds paid from the State, Local Government Joint Account as stipulated by the Constitution are managed and distributed according to the whims of the governors. Thus, most local governments lack sufficient funds to effectively undertake their functions even minimally. Again, since the governors reportedly appropriate much of the funds due to the local government councils, the latter officials simply have no compunction, in turn, to divert much of whatever is released to them for private acquisitive purposes rather than to address local developmental challenges.

Another problem is that of ensuring the integrity of local government elections which is a responsibility conferred on State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs). The latter have been a disaster with every party in power in the states winning 100 percent of Chairmanship and Councilorship positions competed for. Invariably, with their elections guaranteed by partisan SIECs, the local government officials have no sense of responsibility and accountability to the people with negative consequences for grassroots transformation. It is either the SIECs are strengthened constitutionally and administratively to guarantee their independence and autonomy from the autocratic suzerainty of state governors, or their functions transferred to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

It is difficult to understand why anyone should be scared of having credible polls that truly reflect the will of the people at the grassroots all in the name of adherence to some received theoretical doctrine of federalism. If we are striving ceaselessly to improve democratic structures and processes at the centre and in the states, why should the local governments be immune from imbibing the emergent democratic ethos?

It is no exaggeration that state governors are the greatest albatrosses on the country’s evolution in the direction of an ever-increasingly perfect democratic union, which is an ongoing process even in the most advanced democracies. State governors are widely known to have the state legislatures under their thumbs, and maintain a stranglehold on state judiciaries in addition to their lordship over the state public services. Indeed, so ruthlessly have some governors exercised the powers of their offices that many are beginning to be scared of the impending moves toward the establishment of state police outfits.

True, it is inevitable that states must necessarily have some degree of control over local government councils as they have the responsibility of planning for the socio-economic development of all local governments that constitute their geographical territorial demarcation. But this is just the same way that states have their budgets and economic planning efforts carried on within the framework of macroeconomic and monetary policies articulated and adumbrated by the national government.

Of course, no one should be under the illusion that paying funds of local governments directly to them from the Federation Account will automatically translate into manifestations of robust development at the grassroots. There is also the question of the availability of administrative and managerial capacity at that level of governance. It is certainly not out of place to encourage retired citizens with years of experience and accomplishments in both the public and private sectors to seek election as local government chairmen and councilors. Contrary to popular perception, local governments require the highest levels of experienced, capable, and experienced hands because achieving most of our national developmental goals will be a function of the vibrancy and vitality of those elected to run the councils.

Apart from taking deliberate steps to improve the quality of those elected to run local governments, no effort should be spared by ministries of local government in the states to intensify training and retraining of the officials of the local government bureaucracies to enhance their capacity and effectiveness on the job.

Perhaps one initiative that could be useful in our quest for a more viable local government system is to experiment with holding local government elections on no party basis or at least inoculating the local government system from the vitriol and prejudices of national or state-level electioneering and elections. Professor Alex Gboyega notes in this respect that “In fact, one could go as far as to say that only local parties show interest in local elections. For example, according to Bowman “Australian local councils are generally proud to describe themselves as non-political, that is, they do not divide on party lines, and most councilors are not endorsed by a political party. Formally, at least, most local authorities are set apart from the partisan politics of state and federal government “.

Gboyega continues, “In Canada, the principal characteristic of the local political scene…is that the established political parties existing at the federal and provincial levels do not play a direct role in municipal politics. Municipal council members are elected either on a nonpartisan basis or as representatives of purely municipal or civic parties. In the USA too, the party system is so fragmented that national or statewide political parties play no role in local government “. Perhaps this is one area we can look at in reshaping and reorganizing our local government system in Nigeria.

There is obviously a substantial consensus in public discourse that the country’s protracted crisis of underdevelopment since independence is partly a function of the inefficacy, ineffectiveness and scant functionality of the local government system. As the system of government closest to the people, local governments are best placed to mobilize citizens for accelerated participatory development but this potential lies stunted and unrealized. There is no way, for instance, that the immense but dormant energies of the rural populace can be channeled for transformational purposes without vigorous and visionary grassroots gaovernance. Critics of the extant local government system blame the situation on its non-adherence to what they perceive as the ideals of federalism as well as a stultifying uniformity which is a legacy of the country’s almost three decades of military dictatorship.

One of the most prolific and insightful scholars of Nigeria’s local government structure and processes, the late Professor Alex Gboyega, vividly describes the system from what can be described as a purist federalist perspective. In his words, “For a federal system, Nigeria has a remarkably simple pattern and number of local governments. All of Nigeria’s Local Government Areas have a common structure of local government administration regardless of the level of socio-economic development, traditional political system and culture. The uniformity of local government structure in Nigeria contrasts sharply with the situation in other federal systems”. He notes that in the federal structure of the United States, there are over 83,000 units of local government comprising a multiplicity of counties, townships, municipalities, school districts and special districts. The fact that each state has a different constitution implies that local governments are constituted differently across states with a variety of authorities sharing powers of local governance within a given geographical jurisdiction.

Similarly, in Canada there is no common municipal government system across the country while in Australia, each of the six states have distinctive and separate local government systems. But is there an ideal form of federalism which every state claiming that form of constitutional arrangement must necessarily adhere to? I don’t think so. The evolution and structure of local government in a given country will understandably reflect the historical administrative trajectory of such an entity and an embodiment of its traditional political and cultural experiences.

For instance, Brazil is described as having one of the most decentralized federations in the world. According to an online resource, “Its federal system has three tiers of autonomous governing bodies – the central government (the Union), the state governments and the local governments (municipios)…Brazil’s 5,513 municipios are governed by elected mayors, vice mayors and local councils of from 9 to 21 representatives”. A country which fashions its federal system to suit its peculiar circumstances commits no sin in my view especially as in most cases, the form of federalism that prevails is less a function of conscious political engineering than it is of the unfolding flow of events some of which are unforeseen and beyond human control.

In any case, even the territorial demarcation of authority between parties to a federal compact, the centre and the states, is never cast in stone. The weight of power and influence between the federating units is always shifting depending on the unfolding political, economic and historical circumstances. Thus, some scholars note, for instance, that following the great global depression of 1929, the balance of power in America shifted in favour of the federal government which enabled President Franklin Roosevelt to implement his ambitious New Deal programme through which the central government executed huge public works and infrastructure projects to combat the economic crisis between 1933 and 1938.

In a similar vein, the unanticipated coronavirus pandemic which erupted in 2019 compelled the centre in many federal states not excluding the United States to come to the aid of largely helpless states. One of the central thrusts in Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s theory of federalism was that the centre must always be sufficiently provisioned to make it capable of rescuing component parts of the federation when the latter runs into stormy economic weather or in case of destructive, large scale natural disasters.

It is true that the centralized and uniform nature of our local government system is largely a function of the hierarchical structure and unitary orientation of military rule during which the system took shape for a period of nearly three decades. But then, military rule is a fact of our political history which we cannot run away from or wish away from our experience. The fact that not insubstantial numbers of the populace came on the streets to herald the entry of the military onto the political stage at some point in our political evolution in the first and second republics suggests that the pre-military era was not exactly the Eldorado that many commentators seem to suggest today that it was.

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Rather, the same massive corruption, rabid ethnic sectionalism, electoral malfeasance, separatist regional fissures and gross economic mismanagement that we complain about today and blame on the current constitution were the very same evils that resulted in the collapse of the first and second republics and raised false hopes among the populace as regards the developmental potentials of an emergent military messianism mentality within the latter institution.

Yes, the bubble of the military as a redemptive political institution has been shattered not only in Nigeria but across Africa making the seeming fascination of some misguided youths with jackboot military dictatorship in some West African countries where the coup culture has reemerged is sad and unfortunate.

The military has proven to be even more corrupt, venal, unpatriotic and incompetent than the civilian regimes they overthrow and the lesson we have learnt from history is that the cure for the inevitable ills of democracy is to stay the course of democracy as Nigeria has done for the last 25 years – not military rule. But the notion that there was a golden political era disrupted by the military, in the first and second republics, to which we must now seek to return must be vigorously contested and debunked. Contrary to the view canvassed sometimes by very accomplished Nigerians and even elder statesmen that a return to regionalism or the parliamentary system or some envisaged new magical constitution will provide the solutions to our political and socio-economic problems is illusory and naively romantic.

As I noted earlier, there is no challenge which we confront today, no evil among both the political elites and the masses which hobbles our polity today, that were not in abundant manifestation in the pre-1966 era. Let us take the issue of the local government system which is our focus today as an example. Is it that we had genuinely democratic, effective, efficient and incorruptible local government systems in the first republic which the military now dismantled and bastardized when they seized the reins of political power. That is untrue.

In the piece by Professor Alex Gboyega that I quoted earlier, the political scientist reviewed in detail the undoubtedly impressive local government reforms undertaken in the Eastern, Western and Northern regions in the early to late 1950s. These reforms were undertaken with widespread local consultations that involved grassroots stakeholders and sought, as much as possible, to reflect the divergent traditional administrative cultures and histories of the respective communities. The structure of the local councils were not uniform across the country but reflected the divergent peculiarities of the cultural components of each region. Unlike the experience under military rule, the local government reforms of the first republic were not imposed from the top by a supervening dictatorial authority. But that was only half of the story.

How did the reforms actually work out in practice in terms of day to day local government administration in the regions? As Gboyega aptly and tersely put it, “Unfortunately, exigences of intense political party competition and the desire of the ruling parties to cling to power at all costs ensured that the essence of these reforms was not realized”. Illustrating with the example of the Western Region, the professor wrote “In the Western Region, where party competition was most keen because of the split in the Action Group’s leadership after 1962, local government councils became highly prized allies and instruments for coercing political support. With their police and customary courts, local government councils controlled by the region’s ruling political party were used to harass and intimidate political opponents. Those that were not so controlled were dissolved and the councilors replaced by management committees appointed by the regional government. Nor was the situation much better elsewhere. In the Northern Region too, the native authorities were the main instruments through which the Regional Government compelled voters to toe its line”.

Among the measures taken by the military at the time to address abuses of the local government powers in the first republic was the abrogation of the power of the councils to control and run their own police forces. In a similar vein, they were stripped of their powers to maintain local prisons while the alkali and customary courts previously under their control was brought under the purview of the state judicial system under the control of the Chief Judge of the State. And the management committees appointed by the politicians that had replaced elected local councils were replaced by the military with the appointment of senior civil servants as sole administrators of the local government councils.

The measures taken by the military rulers to address the abuses in the system unfortunately but perhaps inevitably resulted in the inexorable centralization of the country’s federal system even though Gboyega admits that these measures “appeared appropriate at the time”. Indeed, painting a picture of the extent of the pervasive abuse of the local government system in that dispensation, Professor Gboyega observes that “However, so bad was the image of these management committees and so extreme was the emotional revulsion they provoked that the Governor of the Western Region, Lt Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi stated emphatically “if anyone thinks there will be local councils again, that person is living in a fool’s paradise”. Let us thus be careful about romanticizing the local government system of the past as some kind of paradise lost which we should strive to retrieve.

Is there anything which inherently incapacitates the local councils as they currently exist from being effective developmental agents if the requisite constitutional provisions that set them up and under which they are run are scrupulously adhered to? I don’t think so. The Constitution requires that the councils must be run by democratically elected officials. This implies that the elections through which they are constituted are free, fair, credible and reflect the will of the people. The extant laws also provide for the mechanism for funding this tier of government so that it can discharge its constitutionally stipulated responsibilities to the people.

If the current case at the Supreme Court in which the President Bola Tinubu administration is seeking that state governments adhere to their constitutional responsibilities with regard to the establishment, administration and funding of local governments succeeds in freeing the councils from current encumbrances, they will most certainly begin to make the requisite developmental impact. But then, there is certainly much more that needs to be done beyond this for the emergence of a viable local government system.