This week, the Centre for Democracy and Development organised a stakeholders workshop to reflect on how to use the opportunity offered by the on-going constitutional reform process to entrench an effective and democratic local government system that is transparent, accountable and responsive to the needs and aspirations of local communities. Key stakeholders including local government chair persons, NULGE, NLC, civil society, academics and political parties were represented. The meeting deplored the lamentable state of local governments in the country in spite of in spite of over six decades of reforms.
The rationale for the existence of local governments and decentralization of power and authority is that there are certain functions, (especially functions related to social services delivery), which can only be effectively performed by a governmental organ or agency which has close contacts with local communities, and local governments, more than any other organ of the State, are better placed to perform these functions due to their proximity to the grassroots. The key issues leading to failure of the local government system in Nigeria are the lack of fiscal, political and administrative autonomy, absence of community driven checks and balances and corruption and lack of transparency and accountability in governance.
Reforms aimed at ensuring responsive governance at the local government level started before independence in the 1950s. The reforms of the 1950s such as the Local Government Ordinance of 1950 in the Eastern Region, the Local Government Law of the Western Region in 1952 and the Native Authority Law of 1954 in the North did not succeed in enshrining participatory democracy at the grassroots because of the strong grip the Regional Governments had over the local governments. There was virtually no major reform of local government during the First Republic until 1976 when the first major attempt was made to restructure local government along democratic lines throughout the country.
The 1999 constitution recognizes local government as the third tier of government, with devolved functions and the power to perform those functions. However, the constitution has placed local governments under the control of the state governments. Section 7, (1) of the constitution states:
“The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the Government of every state shall ensure their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of local councils.” Under this arrangement however, local government autonomy is restricted by higher levels of government not only by statute but also by limitations on their discretion in making and executing their budgets and in control of their personnel in the form of guidelines having the force of law periodically issued by state governments as policy.
While the functions of local government are specified in the Fourth Schedule, local government authorities (LGAs) can exercise their authority only in accordance with enabling legislation passed by the states. Depending on the specifics of this legislation—which varies from state to state—local governments are thus subject to varying degrees of state oversight and control. The evolution of effective and autonomous local government system in Nigeria will therefore require clear constitutional provisions that enhance their powers.major obstacle impeding local government autonomy is the issue of the State Joint Local Government Account.
The Constitution directs State Governments to open a joint account “into which shall be paid allocations to the local government councils of the state from the Federation Account and from the Government of the State” The Account is meant to be a mechanism for implementing the notion of ‘fiscal federalism’ at the local government level in Nigeria. However, the way and manner the account is being managed has negatively affected programme implementation in the local governments. State governors have used this provision to emasculate local governments and divert their allocated resources to other purposes. Adequate flow of funds to the local governments for programme implementation has therefore suffered greatly. In a lot of cases, state governments make deductions at source before sharing the balance to the local government councils leaving them barely enough money to pay salaries.
The key challenges to effective local governance and decentralization in Nigeria are the constitutional ambiguity in defining the responsibility for creating LGAs and the absence of clear delineation of areas of responsibilities between states and LGAs in key concurrent areas such as education and health. There is also the lack of clarity of roles in governing urban centres in which many local governments co-habit and the continual encroachment of state governments on responsibilities of LGAs.
Nigerians have a love for democracy and so far, they do not see that democracy in their local governance. Nigerians deserve to see in their local life the operationalization of the constitutional guarantee of democratic local government. Nigerians deserve a system of local governance that entails a high level of interaction and dialogue between people at the grassroots and their elected representatives. Their local leadership must evolve to start providing the essence of good local governance. Nigerians deserve truly free and fair local government elections and full participation of the in setting the agenda of local governance. It is only on this basis that they can begin to get access to improved social services and basic infrastructure.
For genuine democratic local governance to function, emphasis must be on ownership by the people of activities and initiatives. We must learn to promote effective participation of communities in development initiatives with special consideration for women, the poor and other vulnerable groups in society. We must also strive to promote transparency and accountability in the conduct of local government functions. This will require capacity development for the Councils to enable them perform their statutory responsibilities better and re-align them with their changing roles and responsibilities, especially use of participatory processes in LGAs.
We need to use the opportunity provided by the constitutional review process to make amendments that could institutionalise the guarantee of a democratic local government provided for in Section 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution. To enhance the autonomy of the local government councils there is the need to promote the autonomy of State Independent Electoral Commission by having the appointment of the Chairman of SIEC by an independent agency other than by the State Governor in addition to a having a constitutionally guaranteed sources of funding for SIEC.
The Constitution should empower the local communities to have a say in how local government revenues are spent.
The constitution should also provide for the formation of community-based committees on Monitoring and Evaluation of Projects and Contracts. The main duty of this committee will be to ensure that projects for which contracts are awarded are implemented properly and the committee may serve as a watchdog on local government finances.
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