- It is crucial to empower local governments to perform their statutory role in a democratic setting
A coalition of three unions has agreed, in the spirit of compromise, to support local government autonomy proposed by the National Assembly. The unions are: Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) and Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN). This is, however, on the proviso that primary education would not be under the management of local governments.
Speaking at a regional Constitution Review Committee of the 1999 Constitution in Lagos on behalf of the teachers, the National President of the NUT, Michael Alogba, said: “We are here to say no to autonomy if primary education will be put under local governments.” Further, he argued for revival of the defunct National Primary Education Council (NPEC), a central agency the union perceived to have been responsive to the needs of teachers: “We are not averse to local government autonomy, but the fact that experience is a great teacher has shown that when primary education was put under local governments, it was suffering galore and we do not want a continuation of that.”
On his own part, the NULGE president, Ibrahim Khaleel, added: “We are for autonomy, that is why we are here, and when you are talking about visibility of government, the only thing that will make it visible is when finances, administration are free from unnecessary encroachment… So, the NUT is our sister union and there is no ambiguity between their demand and our own. In summary, demands of the coalition of unions of teachers, local government employees, and medical and health workers include putting education on direct funding from the Federation Account, barring which, it must be put under state management.
Although the union leaders do not see any ambiguity in the positions they have proffered: Yes to local government autonomy, No to placement of primary school education under local government management, we see glaring ambiguity in these positions, particularly in the unions’ conceptualisation of the role of local governments in consolidation of democracy at the grassroots, social development, and national development. Every serious labour union must be sensitive to the capacity of its employer to pay workers’ salaries. Therefore, the NUT is perfectly within its rights to feel worried about the capacity of local governments to pay teachers’ salaries.
Admittedly, there were times in the 1990s when local governments in many parts of the country were unable to pay teachers’ salaries as and when due, the period is too short in the nation’s history to serve as sufficient condition for theorising that local governments are essentially unable to manage primary education. In many modern democracies, local governments are in control of primary and secondary education while states do the same for tertiary institutions. Many federal states even do not have universities the way Nigeria does. Germany and the United States are such examples. To demand a situation where federal, state, and local governments manage primary education may lead to more problems than stakeholders of primary education are able to imagine at the present stage in amendments of the 1999 Constitution.
Certainly, teachers, like other public employees, have been victims of recurrent reform of local governments in the country. The first few years of ‘New Breed’ politicians towards the end of the Babangida regime were years of failure of local government administration in respect of primary school development. Even states in the last two years have defaulted in payment of civil servants’ salaries. Thus, the challenge before the country is not to push for multiplication of sub-national units or critical sectors: education, the military, the police, and other agencies to be funded from the Federation Account. Doing so, or even releasing critical sub-national levels as local governments from performing the crucial role their counterparts in other countries do to advantage may not be the answer.
The answer is for the country to commit to modern governance in all sectors. What is the significance of having a three-tier governance structure in which the third tier and the closest to the grassroots is released from managing primary public, and regulating private primary education? Citizens need to be involved in provision of public education, particularly pre-primary and primary school education, and there is no more democratic way to do this than to give this charge to local governments.
