She Took the Job for the Money and Lost Herself

Polycarp Onwubiko

It would amount to sheer waste of time for certain political interests to take on the Governor of Anambra state, Prof C C Soludo on failure or tardiness to conduct local government council election. Although at the inception of his mandate he made a comment on the local government council election which would come later in the course of his administration.

 It is an indisputable fact and stark reality that no Federalist Governor would attach interest in the conduct of local government council election because the past and present Nigeria presidents refused to address the issue of True Federalism which goes with the Restructuring of the lopsided Federation. Until the country is prepared for Restructuring governance where the inexorable principles of federal system of government will be sacred and sacrosanct, people should forget about local government council election.

Why should I say so? Nigeria can never be taken seriously until Restructuring the lopsided Federation takes place because the Unitary-Federal contraption in place favour the northern part of the country at the expense and detriment of the southern part of the country. In Federations the world over even in the First Republic with the principles of federal system of government in the 1960 Independence constitution, local administration was within the constitutional authority of the respective Regional Governments. In other words, in Federations, there are only TWO TIERS OF GOVERNMENT: the Federal Government and the State (or Regional) Governments.

The gross anomalies and aberration in Nigeria where the military apparently teleguided by the "Northern Political Emirate Establishment" introduced THERE TIERS OF GOVERNMENT ostensibly to favour the northern part of the country through funneling humongous public funds via the monthly Statutory Revenue Allocation. The deft strategy was the 1976 Dasuki local government council Reform which recommended three tiers of government and immediately followed with the creation of surplus local government councils in the northern part of the country without doing same in the southern part of the country.

In military regime, nobody would speak out to condemn aberrations particularly on the issue of Federalism. To prove that the military regime was teleguided by the northern traditional and political chieftains in the creation of surplus local government councils in the North, the military regime did not care to make consultation nationwide;  in other words the military autocracy did not consult with all the ethnic nationalities because it was a game to shortchange other ethnic nationalities in terms of revenue sharing and more importantly the composition of the National Assembly in the planned civilian administration.

Having gotten surplus local government councils in the North, the aberrant military jackboots proceeded to use the local government councils as basis for creating Federal CONSTITUENCIES with the result that the north would have majority members in the National Assembly. The brazen faced ploy was that during the plenary in the National Legislature, the majority members from the North would always carry the day in the voting for all laws, policies and programmes that affect the entire country irrespective of the feelings of the people from southern part of the country.

The particular military regime gave the north two great advantages namely: (1) humongous amount in the monthly Statutory Revenue Allocation (2) Greater Federal Constituencies to have absolute majority in the National Assembly at the expense and detriment of the southerners in the House of Representatives in addition to majority members in the Senate going by the more states created in the North. North has seven states while Southeast has only five states. By extension, the number of local government councils in the Southeast is equal to the number of local government councils in Kano state alone. One Nigeria indeed; who is fooling whom?

This horrendous scenario is at the root of the northern Moslems particularly the alleged "Fulani feudal oligarchy" who never hide their strident kicking against Restructuring the lopsided Federation because it would truncate the Islamization and Fulanization agenda boldly practiced by the brazen faced dictator, the immediate past president of Nigeria, Buhari. The outright rejection of multi policing system (aka State Police) which is an integral part of Restructuring governance by the this phalanx is because their foot soldiers: the terrorists masquerading as herdsmen from the Sahel region of West Africa on territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing binge, would be stopped in their track thus truncating the Islamization agenda to "throw the Koran into the Atlantic ocean", according to their forefathers who straddled Nigeria as solely belonging to them.

Therefore, people who are expecting Governor Soludo to conduct local government council election should prevail on president Tinubu to kickstart immediate Restructuring of the country by convoking National Conference of selected representatives of ethnic nationalities to brainstorm on how Nigerians can live together or practice CON-FEDERATION because it has become very clear that the basis of unity is not there going by the unguarded utterances from the Moslem north.

State Governors should be handling the local government councils as they wish so that the monthly statutory allocation could be well managed for the overall socioeconomic development of the state. As State Police is being mulled by president Tinubu, time has come for a review of Statutory Revenue Allocation to make the states have greater percentage of the monthly statutory allocation above the federal government. More important, there should be ONLY two way sharing of the monthly Statutory Revenue Allocation: Federal Government and State Governments implementing TWO TIERS OF GOVERNMENT as was in the First Republic realistic principles of federal system of government.

State Governors should have the liberty on how to manage the local government councils, even as they are equally at liberty to create more 100 local government councils. The local government councils should be called "Local Administration"; in the First Republic they were called "Divisional Administrative Division, DAD.  That grave injustice, inequity and unfair practice whereby the north has surplus local government councils with humongous amount in the monthly statutory allocation should stop. Ironically, the supposed aim of the military dictator who created surplus local government councils in the north was truncated. His objective was for the people of the local government council areas (traditional and political chieftains) to deploy the humongous amount from the monthly Statutory Revenue Allocation to address the poor situation in the education and health sector in the north.

Sadly, it was observed that the monthly Statutory Revenue Allocation to the surplus local government councils are brazenly looted even as members of the traditional rulers’ families are registered in the payroll of the local government councils. Consequently, in the North, education and health sectors are the worst compared to what obtain in the southern part of the country. The humongous amount of monthly statutory allocation shares are allegedly squandered in cultural activities and religious pilgrimage at the expense of the socioeconomic welfare of the masses who are suffering multi-dimensional poverty.

 

Polycarp Onwubiko, media commentator writes from Awka, Anambra State.