SIR: Recently, the Federal Government took the 36 governors to the Supreme Court for illegally withholding funds meant for local governments in their jurisdiction in contravention of section 7 of the 1999 Constitution as amended. The relevant section stipulates that the system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this Constitution guaranteed.
It is clear that non democratically constituted local governments are an aberration which deserve no funding from the federal government. Since the beginning of this democratisation processes, state governments have not been relating to local government authorities with respect and dignity deserving of the thirdtier level of governance.
First, state governments have been known to be rather arbitrary rather than being constitutional in granting statutory allocations to local governments and as they fall due. Second, elections into local governments have rarely been held as they fall due. In consequence, caretaker committees have been the norms rather the exceptions that they ought to be. Under this condition, it is convenient for local governments to resort to scapegoating in defending their being dysfunctional.
I wonder as to what could be the reasonthe presidency has taken the legal remedy to rescue local governments from the jugulars of the state governments. Has dialogue failed? The APC-led federal government controlled 20 states and it can wield the big stick and employ the party machine to whip recalcitrant governors to queue up behind government. Really, why this ‘unconventional’ path to governance? Is it a signal of the failure of party discipline?
I wish to hazard some guesses. Since, regardless of the political party in power, the presidency has come under incessant attacks by Nigerians regarding development issues in Nigeria. All eyes are on the person of the president. Generally, governors are hardly reckoned with in explaining Nigeria’s predicament with development. Local government chairmen are perceived as helpless and at the beck and call of governors, indeed, chairmen are errand boys of governors. The presidency must have reasoned that it was now time to redirect attention to governors and their irresponsible acts in crippling local governments. There are three centres of government power in Nigeria – if each centre functions effectively, then the federal government will certainly be less blame worthy.
Third, as we know, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu fought hard at the Supreme Court through it’s then Attorney General, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, to assert the authority of the then Lagos state government to create additional local governments. The apex court ruled in favour of the Lagos state government and it became the lot of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua to release the withheld funds in deference to the verdict by the Supreme Court. We need to give the presidency a part on the back for initiating this long overdue legal tussle which no President before Tinubu attempted.
This is a far superior response than the resort to self-remedy for which the former President Obasanjo was castigated when it seized the Lagos state local government funds when the Lagos state under the governorship of Tinubu created additional local council development authorities.
If the presidency wins this new celebrated case against the 36 governors, then, local governments will be able to receive their funds directly and they can then henceforth be blamed for non performance. The presidency and the governors may then become less of a cynosure of attention. Nigerians will become the ultimate beneficiaries of this legal initiative as governments at all levels will become more competitive and possibly more responsible. I commend the presidency for this resort to the path of civility, law and order. Nigeria’s democracy will become better strengthened by the outcome of the legal process. By this bold choice of recourse to the path of legality, President Tinubu has shown a good example that the courts are the last hope of the downtrodden, in this case, the federal government.
• Lai Olurode, Professor of Sociology (retired), is a former National Commissioner, INEC
