One tragic thing about the collapse of governance at the local government level in Nigeria is that the decline began gradually with the return of democratic government in 1999. There is no doubt that this level of governance was thriving even when Nigeria was under the jackboot rule by soldiers, but it began to gasp for life under democracy. Very ironic.
The local government system is fundamental to good governance, delivery of democratic dividends and essential services like health and education. It is the closest government to the people, yet, it has suffered the greatest neglect.
The cause of the decline is not far-fetched. It started when governors were empowered to determine the tenure of elected Council Chairmen in their states and at the same time stripping the local governments of fiscal autonomy and investing this in the state governments. The governors have not only become emperors, they are alpha and omega in their states.
Just like the president is the leader of the party at the federal level, the governors are also leaders of the party in their own domain. The governors have a stranglehold on the local government system. They determine everything at that level. In fact, the governors must be pleased; they should have whatever they want either in the party or at or from all elected offices in the state.
The chairman of the political party that sponsors a governor must pander to his every whim, willy nilly. In the organogram of authority, the chairman should be the one in control of the party, but the reverse is the case in Nigeria. The governor handpicks everyone that catches his fancy and no one can question him.
Once a governor is installed in a state, everyone in the state House of Assembly must be the governor’s man. He controls the Assembly, appoints the principal officers or he must agree to their appointment. Any principal officer that wants to be smarter is booted out with much ease. The only preoccupation of the principal officers of state Assembly is to watch the mouth of the governor and be adept at studying his body language.
So, in cahoots with the assembly, the governor constitutes the State Independent Electoral Commission by handpicking pliable individuals to conduct funny local council elections. The creation of a state Electoral Commission that is funded by the state government to oversee council elections has contributed to decline of governance at the local government level. The SIEC works by ensuring that council elections reflect the will of the governor. No wonder Nigerians have witnessed all manner of landslide victories by the governor’s party during council polls. In fact, such elections are mere formality as those whose hands have been raised up by governors could as well start their victory dance with or without election. That is for governors who choose to even organise council polls.
For some governors, they serve out their entire eight years tenure without organising any council poll. They handpick some caretaker committee, send the list to the Assembly and appoint them administrators to mind the council areas. And every six months or so, renew their tenure until they serve out the entire lifespan of the governor’s time in office.
When caretaker committees, often composed of loyalists, rather than competent personalities are appointed by the governors to oversee the affairs of the LGs, a charade that we can barely call election is designed and staged to deliver 100 percent of the LGs to whatever party the governor belongs to. This arrangement has rendered the LGs mere puppets to be strung about at the whims of the state executives, whose main purpose is not to develop the LGAs, but to secure elections and political relevance for the state governor.
The irony of all is that the local governments are well catered for financially by the Federal Account Allocation Committee. Just as the FAAC gives the Federal Government and State Governments their share of the entire revenue and income accrued to the Federation Account, so also are the local governments, 774 in all.
But that is where the joke starts from. When the FAAC wants to pay the local government, instead of paying directly to their accounts, there is what is called a Joint Account Committee set up by governors of all the states. That is where FAAC lodges all that belong to the local governments. And JAC is like the personal back pocket of the state chief executive.
The governors, all of them, claim that they “help” the councils to pay all manner of obligations instead of handing over what is due to each council. Not only that, they tell the councils they should forever be grateful to them for magnanimously augmenting what the FAAC pays them for their expenses. After claiming to play the big brother, the governors, still magnanimous, pay the salary of all in the council office, including the chairman, who should be grateful that his debt had been cleared.
For probity sake, why can’t the council chair be mature enough to manage the council’s responsibility yet, the title Executive Chairman is affixed to his name? Why are we deceiving ourselves in this country? So how does the council discharge its responsibility as the closest to the masses?
The consequence of all these has resulted in increasing deterioration of services that LGs should be providing. For instance, the Local Education Area schools can often be found in deplorable states with underpaid and hardly qualified teachers, gaping windows and doors, pockmarked chalkboards and walls, broken or completely lacking in desks and teaching materials, oftentimes, with roofs completely blown off.
The failure of the councils to maintain schools under their care and see to the administration of education in the council areas is only one of many consequences of the collapse of local councils. This degradation also manifests with fatal consequences in the failure of basic health care provision. Where primary healthcare facilities exist, they are often inadequate, poorly equipped and understaffed. This results in high maternal and infant mortality rates in many of the councils.
The failure of the council to provide basic amenities and maintain the ones already on the ground has contributed to the insecurity being experienced in many parts of the country today. The lack of amenities, good roads and usable communication facilities translate to the lack of government presence which has worsened insecurity. It has also created fertile recruitment grounds for criminals and other dangerous groups.
The direct consequence of this is the stream of rural-urban migration that continues to boost unemployment in the cities because residents of the local government areas who could run and operate small and medium-scale businesses in the fields of agriculture and service provision, are being forced to migrate due to maladministration and lack of basic infrastructure. They are being drawn to the glitter of city life where they find themselves out of work.
This has resulted in the over-reliance on the federal government to provide service that is not within its purview and its failure to do so results in increased frustration and angst against it. This inadvertently makes it easier for criminal gangs to recruit from the hordes of frustrated youths with the simple argument that the government has failed them.
To address this, the Federal Government should take conscious steps to revive the local governments through policy changes that will increase their autonomy and fiscal independence. The FAAC should shun the JAC and pay the councils what is due to them directly. The governors should stop spoon feeding the local government chairmen; the council chairs should be weaned so that they are no more babies. They should know the number of mouths they are feeding monthly and should be able to distribute resources among their subjects.
Also, state governments must create the necessary stability for the local government to be self-reliant and one way to do that is to move for the scrap of JAC. Council elections must be free and fair and most importantly must have a regular and well-documented timetable. It is important for states to note that they cannot develop by stunting local councils.
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The local councils themselves must sit up and take the bull by the horns by improving their IGR through diligent accounting of their taxation of businesses such as markets and SMEs in the Councils and the ploughing back of these taxes into the development of the LGAs.
The failure of the Councils is not sustainable and, therefore, all hands must be on deck to reverse the tide.
The LGAs are the first line of administration, the government that is closest to the people. They simply cannot afford not to be there for the people.