By Polycarp Onwubiko
Sadly, for years now there has been a groping in the dark on the running of local government councils in Nigeria due to the deliberate failure to acknowledge the inexorable principles of federal system of government as practiced the world over.
It is curious that the Supreme Court
judges in 2016, could not demonstrate grasp of the principles of federal system
of government hence its flawed judgment to grant administrative and financial
autonomy to the local government councils. Ignorance is the worst thing that
can happen in governance. Pride could not let the Supreme Court judges to
invite lecturers in the department of political science to throw light on the
position of local administration in a Federation.
If the lecturers had been invited, the groping
in the dark on local government matter could have been avoided. But the fact
was that ethno religious factor played a subterranean part in the muddle in the
local government matter. The military head of State who empaneled the infamous
"1976 Dasuki local government council Reform" had covert ethnic
agenda by making local government administration a THIRD TIER OF GOVERNMENT
contrary to the practice of federal system of government as obtained in the
First Republic. Of course the military regime knew that it violated the
principles of federal system of government as obtained the world over.
It does not pay for the Federal
Government to continue to deceive Nigerians on the issue of local
administration. It should call a spade a spade by abolishing the monthly statutory
allocation to the local government councils. The Statutory Revenue Allocation
should be reviewed immediately with the state governments having over 70
percent of the monthly Statutory allocation so that they can address the ever
dilapidation of road and railway infrastructure, security, health and agencies
like motor license plate number production.
The humongous amount of monthly
Statutory allocation to the northern part of the country have been a waste
because the privileged political and traditional rulers have been making ducks
and drakes with the local government councils funds. The selfish objective of
the military head of State which created the third tier of government and went
further to create surplus local government councils in the northern part of the
country was to address the parlous state of education and health in the
hinterlands but unfortunately the people have been denied the provision of
education and health facilities that would have transformed the vast areas in
the north.
President Tinubu should not
indulge in the harassment of Governors to conduct local government council’s
election or hearken to the ignoble call of some people who are not knowledge in
the federal system of government to seize the monthly statutory allocation to
the local government councils which are being channelled through the state
governments.
In the illuminating and praise
worthy Punch Editorial, February 29, 2024 captioned: "How to build
effective local government system", the paper educated the Federal
Government on the meaning of local administration in a federal system of
government. It says inter alia:
"The major impediment to
an effective local government system is Nigeria's flawed political system. The
1999 constitution goes against the tenets of federalism by legalizing local
governments as the third tier of government. This is unwise and will not work.
"In other federal
entities, local governments are under the control of sub national governments,
and they create and maintain such as they seem fit.... Therefore, to build a
virile local government system, the stakeholders, especially the National
Assembly, which is amending the 1999 constitution should abrogate that
provision that makes them the third tier of government.
"The new amendment should
grant express powers over local governments to the federating units. When
States fund their local governments without federal allocations, they will make
them accountable and effective".
Comment:
Who will bell the cat, as it
were? The BRAZEN-FACED ultra-conservative phalanx that have held down the
socioeconomic and political growth and development of Nigeria cannot allow such
civilized set-up to be practiced because of self-centered calculations to
corner the Commonwealth of the country to their ethnic nationalities at the
expense and detriment of the other ethnic nationalities crying for
marginalization since the dumping of the realistic federal system of government
in the Independence constitution later renamed 1963 Republican Constitution.
The contraption referred to as
the 1999 constitution is self-serving to the “Fulani feudal oligarchy “which
left other Nigerians with the impression that they would continue to dictate
what goes on in the country. Fact remains that there is no other way to return
the local administration to the State other than immediate Restructuring of the
lopsided Federation to reinvent the principles of federal system of government
as obtained in the First Republic.
To do this requires CONVOKING
NATIONAL CONFERENCE of selected representatives of ethnic nationalities to
fashion PEOPLE'S CONSTITUTION based on an agreement on how Nigerians can live
together with equity, fairness and justice. It is arrant nonsense to hand over
the fortunes of Nigerians to the so-called "Committee on Amendments to the
1999 constitution" which remains a barren exercise.
Polycarp Onwubiko, media commentator
writes from Awka, Anambra State
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