As deliberations at the National Conference gather momentum, the recommendation of the Committee on Political Restructuring that local government administration and funding be left in the hands of the states is a step in the right direction. It is a realistic proposal that will bring Nigeria’s political system in line with accepted principles of federalism.
Although some groups – especially the Arewa Consultative Forum – have openly protested against the proposal to transfer the 774 LGs in the country to states for fiscal and administrative regulation, the committee’s plan is a political masterstroke that deserves to be ratified by the conference. The National Union of Local Government Employees is also wrong to insist that the present awkward system be retained. One certainty in today’s Nigeria is that one group cannot indefinitely exclude others from power or lord itself over others without an implosion.
Our position, therefore, is that in the restructured Nigerian federation, all powers not granted to the Federal Government should be reserved for the states and the people. And it is only the Federal Government and states that should share power. Local government must be solely the affair of the state and be granted power by it accordingly.
For far too long, the local government system has distorted Nigeria’s federalism. Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution, which provides for the system of local government, including the functions and statutory allocation of public revenue, runs against the basic tenets of federalism. Federal constitutions do not normally include provisions for the local government to function as a tier of government for fiscal allocations. The United States Constitution is silent on the issue. The Swiss Constitution is the same. In Canada’s Constitution, the local government is not recognised though the country has 3,700 municipalities controlled by provinces. The Australian Federal Constitution is the same – the power to legislate on local governments is vested in the federating units. The states in the US designed and created the 89,050 local government units (as of 2012) with most of them having at least two tiers, county and municipality, while some further sub-divided theirs into townships. In all virile federal systems, a local government is strictly the business of the federating unit.
At independence in 1960, the three regions were in charge of LGs. The 1963 Republican Constitution specifically stated, in Section 2, “Nigeria shall be a Federation comprising Regions and a Federal Territory, and shall be a Republic by the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” But decades of centralisation under misguided and brutish military dictatorships, beginning from January 15, 1966, misunderstood local government administration and turned it to an extractive weapon for undue political and economic advantage. Only the regions were recognised in the allocation of revenue as provided for from Section 136 to 145 of the 1963 Constitution.
The local council reforms of 1976 by the Federal Military Government led to the recognition of local governments in Section 7 of the 1979 and 1999 constitutions in the schedules. Further reforms between then and 1996 saw the LGs mushrooming to 774 (419 in the North and 355 in the South) LGs.
The inequity of listing local governments in the constitution is significantly reinforced by Section 7, subsection 6 (a) of the 1999 Constitution, which states, “the National Assembly shall make provisions for statutory allocation of public revenue to local government councils in the Federation….” Consequently, 20.6 per cent of federal allocations now go directly to the 774 LGs in the country. This is politically incongruous and economically unjust.
The abnormality was forcefully brought home after Nigeria returned to civil rule in 1999. Lagos State, which contributes about 70 per cent of non-oil revenues to the Federation Account, created 37 new LGs. In 2004, this development pitted the state against the Federal Government, which withheld its LG allocations against the ruling of the Supreme Court, which also insisted that the Constitution must be amended first to complete the process. The withheld funds, altogether totalling N10.8 billion, were only released in 2007 by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.
This comfortless marriage should be renegotiated. Itse Sagay, a law professor, weighs in with cogent reasoning, saying, “Every state should create, fund and run local governments as they deem fit. Why should we even have a Federation Account? Why not Federal Government Account and State Government Accounts?” This is apt and should be in operation in Nigeria, too. Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State added, “The states are the federating units, while the local governments are merely administrative units, centres of development in the states. Local governments must not be seen as anything outside the total authority of the states.” He is spot on.
In reforming the system, the states – and not the Federal Government – should supervise and fund LGs. This is one of the most critical assignments before the National Conference. If the conference fails to achieve this basic requirement for a workable federal state, it would turn out to be a colossal waste of time, energy and resources.
