reports BIYI ADEGOROYE 
President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent indictment of state governors over stunted grassroots development is not misplaced, but should motivate the media, development partners and stakeholders to finding a way out of the miasma, reports BIYI ADEGOROYE
Stunted growth, dilapidated infrastructures, horrible roads, decrepit primary school buildings, hospitals, appalling markets, and awful cemeteries – these and many more have been visible vestiges of governance in many of the 774 local governments in the country. Even councils housing state capitals like Ikeja and Kaduna are not left out of the list of crumbling, filthy gutters.
Pursuant to the 1999 Constitution as altered, the local governments are at the vanguard of grassroots development, taking care of cemeteries, drainages, waste disposal, markets and primary education. But they maintain joint accounts with the state governments for the release of their federal allocations.
In other democracies around the world, counties as local governments are called, enjoy financial independence or autonomy of the state, and conceive policies, programmes and projects according to the peculiar needs of their constituents and manage their budgets within funds available to them.
But in Nigeria, the story is entirely different, as the councils are tied to the apron strings of the governors, as mere appendages and suffer from their strangleholds.
In a lawsuit, the governors even challenged and pulverized a recent Federal Government’s Executive Order granting the councils financial autonomy. Since then, it has been a reversion to status quo ante, where governors, like emperors of medieval times, determine the destinies of the councils and their residents.
Allocations to LGs
In conformity of with the National Revenue Allocation Formula which earmarked 20.60 per cent of revenues into the federation account to the LGs, records have it that since the return to democracy in 1999 about N25 trillion have accrued to the local governments in Nigeria.
For instance, the federation account allocation committee (FAAC) says it shared N700.235 billion among the three tiers of government in September 2022. Out of this, N66.475 billion went to LGs through state governments.
Of the N736 billion shared in October, the Local Government Councils got N177.086 billion, while the oil-producing states received N26.228 billion as Derivation (13 per cent Mineral Revenue).
According to the committee, N954.085 billion total distributable revenue comprised distributable statutory revenue of N776.918 billion and distributable Value Added Tax (VAT) revenue of N177.167 billion.
According to a sources, in 2019, all the local governments shared N1.649 trillion; in 2018, it was N1.667 trillion; in 2017, N1.502 trillion; in 2016, they shared 1.011 trillion; in 2015, they shared N1.205 trillion; in 2014, they shared N1.557 trillion; in 2013, they shared N1.708 trillion; in 2012, they shared N1.535 trillion; in 2011, they shared N1.255 trillion; in 2010, they shared N1.328 trillion; in 2009, they shared N976.817 billion and in 2008, they shared N1.206 trillion.
However, from all indications, the level of development and infrastructural decay and deficiency in the councils make a mockery of the humongous funds supposedly received by these 774 councils. A walk through Mushin, Itire, Okokomaiko and Ajagunle in Lagos leaves one with blocked drains and gullies on the streets.
In a recent interview with Sunday Telegraph, former governor of Abia State, Dr. Owesileize Nwodo said: “ Of course, that has been an issue over time. The State Governors have been tampering with local government funds, despite the fact that the schedule of duty of the local governments is well spelt out in the Nigerian Constitution. That is why the money that is appropriated to them is there for them to take care of those responsibilities, but for fact that the allocation is coming through a common pool in the states, most of the time the state governors are tampering with those funds.”
A local government chairman told Sunday Telegraph that the governors merely release funds for running the councils, besides payment of salaries. “The governors are usurping our constitutional responsibilities, spending our funds, merely giving us handouts. The state of disrepair of the road to our secretariat and even our offices attest to this. They even block our sources of revenue by contracting it to their agents.
“We would love to have an efficient technology-driven local government administration, have a data of primary schools, teachers, businesses, roads and even shops within our jurisdiction and formulate strategies to meet their needs, within the ambit of the law, but we cannot because of the governor’s dictatorial interference,” the chairman said.
Laughable LG polls
Apart from Kaduna State, local government elections in the country have been described as a charade where all candidates of the governor’s political party win all the seats. In the 2022 LG election conducted in Osun State, all the seats in the 69 LGs and area councils were ‘won’ by candidates of the then Governor Adegboyega Oyetola’s APC.
Unlike what obtained in May 2018, in Kaduna, where under Governor Nasir el-Rufai the ruling APC won in 12 local government areas and the PDP won in five, with results from three inconclusive, reports from other states of the federation returned candidates of the governor.
In January 2018 LG polls in Delta State, PDP won all the 25 chairmanship seats, same in Bauchi State, where the ruling PDP won all the 23 chairmanship and 276 councillors seats. The story is not any better in Eboni’s 13 LGs, Edo’s 18 chairmanship and 192 councillorship seats, Ekiti’s 16 chairmanship and 177 Councillorship seats and Enugu 17 chairmanship and 260 councillorship positions.
Impositions and anointing
Free and fair party primaries hardly take place in the states. Some party chieftains said the governors determine who succeeds them, either by anointing successors and imposing others.
The situation is similar if not the same in determining who gets elected into the National Assembly either as members of the Senate or House of Representatives. “In some cases, the principle competence, fairness and zoning are followed in the choice of aspirants into those positions, but largely, no one contradicts the governor’s position,” a party chief said.
Even upon election into the National Assembly, the federal lawmakers have not independent position based on facts, history, common sense and national interest. “Before they vote on any issue of national importance, they must consult with the governor or risk re-election,” a source said.
Rubber stamp State Assemblies
The election into the state assemblies and the performance of their legislative and oversight functions are not devoid of executive interference. Contrary to the principle of separation of powers, many state assemblies hardly carry out robust scrutiny of activities of the executive in the interest of the people.
“Executive bills are hardly debated thoroughly, and public hearings sought to enrich them, otherwise the states would have fared better. For instance, minor traffic offences come with huge fines like impounding and auctioning of vehicles, which are grossly unreasonable, crude and out of tune with what obtains all over the world.
“Budgets in the states are passed without adequate scrutiny; even appointees are rarely screened thoroughly to determine their suitability for offices they are nominated for. In the end, what we have is round pegs in square holes and ultimately bad governance,” a source said.
Recall that early in 2022, the Chairman, Senate Ad hoc Committee on Constitution Review, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, accused state governors of trying to stall the process of further amendment to the nation’s constitution currently being carried out by the federal parliament.
Once asked for his view on the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) on council funds, the then Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Dr. Kayode Fayemi said “as far as we are concerned, the position of the NGF on the issue of NFIU is that …” there is no law that has been passed in the country on local government autonomy. There have been several attempts, but it has never gotten 24 states Houses of Assembly out of the 36 in the country to make it happen.
That is the process. Currently, Nigeria is a two-tier federation; it is not a three-tier federation; talk about Nigeria being a three-tier federation is a distortion.
“Besides, what is the business of the NFIU on local governments’ funds? When you read the NFIU law, NFIU monitors what is going on in the banking system, internationally and locally and if you have a specific case of money laundering, please bring it up. You cannot have a general rule to address a unique problem.
You can’t because you want to fight money laundering; you now say that states and local governments cannot run joint accounts, which is in the Constitution of Nigeria. Section162.”
Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, former Abia State governor summed it up, stating “the earlier we make sure they get their money directly, and there is a way that we can also check how they are spending the money, I am sure that more can be done in the hinterlands than it is being done at this time.”
