Henry Kissinger, a great US Secretary of State in his final interview before living office following the Nixon’s Watergate Scandal, had cautioned leaders of nations, that a world in which a few entities become islands of wealth in a sea of despair, is inherently unstable, as those who consider themselves dispossessed would always constitute the seabed of upheaval.
Cosmas Uzodinma
Whether you call it Boko Haram, IPOB in the South East, area boys in the South West, kidnappers, bandits, cattle rustlers in the North Central and all. They all come from the same source: a failed grassroots governance structure.
The gridlock, misery of life in having to fight, push and jostle for space in rickety commuter busses is a result of over congestions of our cities engendered by the economic collapse of the countryside. Attending a conference in Lagos last year, I saw flashes of improvements here and there but the streets were still as decrepit. Adding to the hell produced by “Molues,” a worse pestilence had arisen to devour the land, the swamp of rickshaws – “Keke NAPEP.” With crime is still endemic and lawlessness still reign. The city has become a moving sea of humans streaming down from the hinterland, most of whom looked tired and forlorn.
How can we redeem our nation? I asked myself. Yes, “Making Local Governments Work,” I thought. Except we make the 774 local governments strewn across the country work, the whirlwind of urban-rural drift and the resultant wave of insecurity will continue to shake the gates of our major cities, who constitute islands of wealth in a sea of the grassroots despair.
Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, guarantees “The System of Local Government by democratically elected councils.” Furthermore, it tasked every stated “…to ensure their existence under a Law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions….” Similarly, the same constitution, in the Fourth Schedule outlined the functions of the Local Governments.
Painfully, the observance of these provisions has been more in the breach than in compliance by the various states of the Federation. Curiously, the Federal Government, National Assembly and Judiciary are complicit by the manner with which they have allowed the rape of the local governments by the states to subsist.
The recent efforts by the President to ensure that Local Governments get their required funds in a reform through the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Monitoring Unit (NFIU) is very commendable. The policy is designed to check the diversion of local government allocations by state governors. This policy should be supported by all well-meaning Nigerians and those who oppose it are the real enemies of the people.
Mr. President should also move further to remove all clogs in the wheel of Local Government autonomy by moving to abrogate the Joint Account Allocation Committees Act as it has outlived its usefulness. The Federal Government should also ensure strict adherence to provisions that states allot 10 percent of their Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) to their local governments. In the same vein, all provisions on the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution regarding the functions of local governments should be enforced.
A look back into the 20 years of civilian democratic governance, easily reveals that all the local governments in the country have received a whopping N19 Trillion. Considering that every local government receive and average of monthly statutory allocation of N100million, your home Local Government has thus far received over N24billion in the 20 years of civilian administration. But just look around: there is nothing to show for it. Over 75 percent or roughly N14 trillion of this money was intercepted and misappropriated by past state governors stripping our rural communities bare.
To justify this appalling situation, very flimsy arguments have been adduced. One of such is the lack of manpower in for the local governments. This arguments falls flat on its face as Nigeria today has 153 universities, 83 polytechnic and a host of other tiers of higher institutions. Even if the required manpower for local governments were to be all graduates all the local governments would have more than enough and there would still be graduates walking the streets of our local governments for job.
Another major abuse is that of the lack of the electoral process in local governments. Even though the Constitution guarantees a Local Government System through democratically elected councils, the governors have chosen to defy this requirement and have not been called to answer for this scam. Evil, of course, thrives when laws are disregarded with impunity.
In a recent interview, Rauf Aregbesola, former governor of Osun State argued that the role given to local governments in Nigeria is a misnomer as in countries practicing federalism only two components exist. This arguments indeed, gives an insight into the character and personality of the people that run our states. Pray, where did he get his facts from? Is it the US, Germany, Russia or South Africa. All Federal Governments, beyond their federating units have active municipal or city governments headed my mayors or their equivalents. Even in strong arm countries like Russia, the various republics which function as states have municipalities which enjoy a high measure of autonomy in the running local affairs.
In Africa, South Africa offers a good example. South Africa has nine provinces which function as states and which are subdivided into municipalities. As unitary as the United Kingdom sounds it is more or less a confederation of four countries namely England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland which operate as subdivisions enjoying even more autonomy than states in most federations. The country is again subdivided into Cities, Counties and Burroughs for the purpose of local governance.
Similarly I have heard the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) submitting that local government autonomy would kill primary education in Nigeria. Funny. Everyone today knows that public primary school system today is as good as dead even in states like Imo State. In my local government, mushroom private primary schools have taken over the way weeds overwhelm an abandoned exotic garden. Compare primary education today with the immediate post-independence era. Under the native authority days, primary schools fared better than now despite the overarching influence of states in the management of their affairs. The leadership of the NUT should do their research.
The world is not waiting for us and for as long as Nigeria is not prepared to give grassroots governance its pride of place we would continue to play laggards on the world stage. Today, even Ghana has upstaged Nigeria as Africa’s leader in remittances and foreign investments. Creating an enabling environment for Local Governments to work would spread our development transmitter stations.
All great nations of the world are countries that have allowed their local governments to thrive. Except local governments are made attractive they would not be able to attract the best brains. Many experienced technocrats are ready to go home to reverse the rural urban drift if the Federal Government can do what is needful.
The current front runner in the British Prime Ministership race Boris Johnson was the immediate past the Mayor of London – a Local Government Chairman. Among the greatest leaders of US are great Local Government Chairmen – Rudy Guiliani and Michael Bloomberg of New York; Andrew Young – Atlanta; Sadiq Khan – London; Rahm Emmanuel – Obama time White House Chief of Staff and later Mayor of Chicago. Jonathan Rothschild (yes a Rothschild) is mayor of Tucson Arizona, Arizona.
This mystic can be recreated in Nigeria with Chairs of Lagos Island, Ikeja, Kano Municipality, Aba, Onitsha, Ibadan, and so on attracting great hands who could do better than most of our governors who are nothing but power grabbers and milk-snatchers.
What Mr. President has done is a significant departure from the past and indeed a Next Level step but falls shorts of the fundamentals required for a substantive turn around in the fortunes of the Nigerian people at the grassroots. Mr. President should proceed boldly. Sponsor a Bill for an ACt to remove the bottle necks to Local Government autonomy and protect the electoral process at the grassroots level and prosecute greedy and tyrannical governors.
This is not to say that when all these are done, we would reach an Eldorado, however the step is could provide panacea to over 60 percent of our developmental problems. When youths see their communities regenerated they would be encouraged to stay back and those in the cities would return home. Without strengthening our local Government system Nigeria would continue both to implode and to play catch-up on the global stage.