By Mudiaga Affe, Kassim Omomia, Ben Ogbemudia and Cajetan Mmuta
Issues bearing on local government administration have continued to draw attention with more Nigerians taking greater interest in the tier of government.

This is coming on the heels of President Muhammadu Buhari’s accusation that governors were stifling the country’s council administration.

“Local governments have been killed. The three tiers of government, if they are being followed properly, we would not be having these social problems.

“But the problem is that they have been virtually killed and that is not good for this country because those who become the local government chairmen are being compromised.

“If your local government is supposed to receive N300m, a letter will be prepared for you to sign that you have received the money and you are only given N100m”, the President had declared a few days ago.

Appraising the development, many stakeholders, including a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Muiz Banire; President, Nigeria Voters Assembly, Mashood Erubami; member of the House of Representatives, Dennis Idahosa, among others, aligned with the position of the President.

For Banire, the governors were truly frustrating the activities of the councils.

In a statement titled: “Time to liberate local government councils”, the senior advocate insisted that moves by the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Agency (NFIA) to stop governors from pilfering the funds of LGAs had not been successful.

He noted that the way out of the imbroglio was for the implementation of local government autonomy.

Grazing route: Presidency, Govs in face-off

He, therefore, urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to step in and rescue the councils.

The SAN said, “In an attempt to insulate the local government councils from the invasion of the revenue accruable to the councils, the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Agency (NFIA) insisted that funds accruable to the council must be paid directly to the accounts of the constitutionally recognized local government councils in the country.

“With this development, albeit the directive not so legitimate, one would have thought that the councils would have been saved from this invasion. Alas! The council managers are still bullied by some governors into making undue remittances in so many other amorphous ways. This ultimately defeats the noble intentions of the NFIA and certainly calls for sanctions.

“The NFIA and, by extension, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission need to urgently step in to make a scapegoat of some of the council chairmen that budge to this illegitimate demand. We certainly need development at the grassroots.

“This brings me to the question of local government autonomy. This has been on the front burner for some time but not much progress has been made. The drag is not unconnected with the nefarious activities of some governors and, by extension, the Houses of Assembly in thwarting the constitution amendment process that would have conferred on the councils the necessary autonomy.

“Just as in the cases of the judiciary and the legislature, the governors and the Houses of Assembly enjoy the subjugation of the councils to their authority and manipulation. The states insist that the councils must remain their milking cow. It is, therefore, imperative that the constitutional aberration of subjecting their structure and administrative control to the state legislature must be dismantled to clear the way for the councils’ autonomy.”

Also, Erubami faulted the development, adding that the governors tampered with council allocations because there was no strict monitoring by the regulatory authorities.

He said, “The governors are only still doing what they are doing because there is no strict enforcement. They (the governors) saw the LGAs funds as free money over the years and they do not want to relinquish it.

“One of the ways it could be checked is to ensure that the leadership of LGs is democratically elected. If this is done, the governors will refrain from doing what they are doing at the moment.”

Idahosa said the President was right to have accused the governors of stifling local government administrations.

He said, “The problems we have in this country are the governors and they are responsible for halting the progress of Nigeria. Local government councils are closer to the grassroots and they know the problems in their localities, but when the electorate does not have a say in who governs them at the local government level as a result of the imposing tendencies of the governors, it becomes a problem.

“Governors in different states appoint chairmen and councillors from the comfort of their offices, those supposedly elected are direct appointees of the governors and that is where the issue lies. If the governors truly allow democracy at the local government level, most of those who parade themselves as chairmen cannot win elections at the grassroots.

“Under such circumstances, these hand-picked chairmen will never have the interest of the grassroots at heart. It is for that reason that those who find themselves administering the local government areas will naturally be loyal to the governors and development can never take place. What is needed is full autonomy at the local government council level.”

To achieve full autonomy, Idahosa proposed, “The states’ independent electoral commissions should be scrapped and the responsibility of conducting council election should revert to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), – that is when we will begin to have confidence in the system. If we begin to have truly elected chairmen, vice-chairmen, and councillors in an election conducted by INEC in all the 774 LGAs that is when things will start working at the grassroots level.

“Most of today’s council chairmen do not have grassroots orientation and they hardly want to operate from their LGA, this is sad. This again too is because the governors hand-pick these chairmen and impose them on the people at the grassroots. There is no real relationship with their people. When you live with your people and know what they are going through you should be able to proffer solution to their common problems.”

Similarly, a former local government councillor in Edo State, Isaac Ehigiator, frowned on the fact that the control of a majority of the councils rested in the hands of governors.

According to him, the governors decide how the councils are run and they coerce their officials to dance to their tune.

He said, “In the state where I was a former elected councillor, the governor took over the council revenues collection from markets to motor parks in the name of collecting as revenue.

“Worst still, the councillors empowered by the law will pass the budget for the council, the governor will direct the chairmen to bring the same budget to government house and at the end, they will abuse the budget and single-handedly approve between N50 million and N70 million for them to build market or borehole,” he alleged.

The Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State, Humphrey Ezeike, accused the governors of collaborating with council chairmen by entering secret alliances with accountants, auditors and treasurers at that level to swindle the councils.

This ‘unholy’ pact, he lamented, had impacted negatively on the development of the councils and the welfare of the people at the grassroots.

Ezeike, who spoke against the backdrop of happenings in the state, canvassed that granting autonomy to the councils remained the only effective way to check the excesses of the governors.

Autonomy, he added, would pave way for accountability and judicious application of allocations as well as create room for the management of the internally generated revenue at the councils.

Also a lawyer, Damian Nosike, said the councils should be autonomous even as their leaders should ready to account for their stewardship.

“The observation of Mr. President is right. These councils are in the constitution and they are recognised as the first tier of government. So, also are the states and the federal government. To the best of my knowledge, each tier of government has its modus operandi and this should be respected”, Nosike added.

However, an Abuja-based legal practitioner, Osamede Agbonifo, blamed the President and governors for the woes.

For Agbonifo, the President did not have the locus-standi to criticise the governors for not giving their respective local government councils autonomy.
He argued that even at the federal level where the federal judiciary draws funds on first line charge, they were not autonomous as they were still subservient to the executive.

He said, “As regards the local government autonomy, the Buhari has no locus-standi to lambast the governors for not giving their respective local government autonomy. Even at the federal level, the judiciary does not have autonomy, despite the constitutional provisions under Section 6 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) that recognized them as a separate arm of government. They are still subservient to the whims and caprices of the executive.”

He noted that the continuous domineering attitude of the executive on the judiciary has affected the quality of judgement, the majority of them dispensed.

Agbonifo, however, blamed why council chairmen were not performing on the doorsteps of the governors, saying that the latter has consistently deprived the councils of their legitimate funds.

“The local government can’t perform optimally when they are being deprived of funds by their respective governors,” he added.

According to him, despite the deprivation, some of the council bosses were deploying creative and resourceful means from their little resources to impact positively on their people.

He, however, charged the council chairmen to think out of the box, as well as design a way of generating funds internally, instead of relying on the stipend given to them by governors.

But an aide to one of the governors in the south-south, who craved anonymity, blamed the council chairmen for the inadequacies in the system.

According to the aide, many of these officials do not stay in the councils to perform their duties. They abandon these rural areas, he said, preferring to stay in the state capitals.

He added, “A lot of the local government chairman is lazy and subservient to the governors. They embezzle LGA funds and they do not perform and because they do not perform some governors are now stifling them. Some of them see council election as a retirement place. If they are vibrant and they know what they are doing, they will perform.”

Build up to the matter
Meanwhile, the tango started on May 6, 2019, when the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) issued the “Guidelines to reduce vulnerabilities created by cash withdrawals from local government funds throughout Nigeria.”

The release, which elicited joy across the country that the long-awaited local government autonomy had finally come, was short-lived as governors, findings indicate, still wielded a lot of influence in happenings at the council level.

Again, in the heat of the continuous violation of the constitutional provisions, President Buhari had issued Executive Order No 10 of 2020, compelling the enforcement of financial autonomy for the legislature and the judiciary in the states.

The order was to have the funds standing to their credit (Local Government and the Judiciary) in the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

But the governors last April rejected the Executive Order.
They clarified that while they were not against the implementation of the law on financial autonomy, they would not be stampeded by the order.

According to the governors, the President’s Executive Order 10 is not required for the implementation of the financial autonomy they jointly facilitated.