THE demand for abolition of State-Local Governments Joint Account, made the other day in Lagos, raises yet again the incongruity of the operation of the third tier of government in a federal set-up. That local governments in the country exist more in name than in actual sense is hardly news, given, as it is, that they have to practically beg their states to perform the minutest of their functions.

This situation has not always been so. It crept in steadily in the last 16 years, mainly as a result of greed and dictatorial tendencies of some state governors; and partly because the councils themselves indirectly paved way for the state executive usurpation of their power. In the past, local governments had been involved in tales of grand corruption, embezzlement of public funds and failure to execute public projects.

The anomaly of having joint state-local governments’ accounts, as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution, was what prompted the latest demand for its abrogation by participants at a technical workshop for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). Moved by the challenge, and concerned also about the need to define the tenure for elected councils’ officials, the participants called for a comprehensive constitutional amendment to address the lacuna in the law establishing local governments.

The workshop with the theme “Effectiveness of state laws and rules of procedure on transparency and accountability” was organised in Lagos by the Human Development Initiative (HDI) in conjunction with the Public Service Staff Development Centre (PSSDC).

The participants particularly noted that joint accounts have been abused and should, therefore, be abolished with the local governments given direct access to their Federal allocation. They also noted that state electoral commissions should be disbanded; and that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) be mandated to conduct all elections.

Furthermore, they demanded that local councils should practise open governance, which would ensure that all transactions of government are transparent; and that parastatals communicate with community members and maintain websites where they publish all incomes and expenditures.

It must be noted that the ideals canvassed at the workshop are exactly the intendment of the 1999 Constitution when it stipulated in Section 7(1) that: “The system of local government councils is under this constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the Government of every state shall, subject to Section 8 of this constitution, ensure their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and function of such councils.”

In its first schedule, the 1999 Constitution went on to list 774 local governments in the country; and further in its fourth schedule provided for functions of a local government council.

However, there is no doubt that over the years, the constitutional provisions have been bastardised and the local governments rendered almost comatose. This newspaper had cause to note, in its editorial of May 13, 2014, on the status of local government thus:
“Notoriously, the local government became a tool of accessing the federation account, and successive leaders saw it as a means of aggrandizing their own part of the country in the overbalanced federation.

So, as it were, local governments were created at the whims of those who held the levers of power, without due regard to population, needs for local government, development and sustainability principles. This tendency is reflected in the number of local governments in the country today. These calculations were never informed by the subsidiarity principle of local governance and the need for power devolution/decentralisation, but by patronage.”

Sadly, this situation, if not worsened, subsists till date. What it means is that the call for abolition of joint state councils accounts is but one of the fundamental issues needing to be addressed in order to entrench a viable system.

While it is appropriate that local government receive allocations directly from the federation account without having to go cap-in-hand to state governors, council officials must demonstrate responsibility and competence to run their governments, and perform functions assigned to them to the overall benefit of the people.

Ultimately, the entire structure of the local government needs be revisited, starting from whether they should form part of the constitution; to the election of their officials; formation; as well as their funding.

It is the position, for instance, of the Committee on Political Restructuring and Forms of Governments, at the 2014 Constitutional Conference, that the 774 local governments be removed from the country’s constitution and that local governments’ affairs should be transferred to the legislative competence of the states. Nigerians certainly cannot run away from thorough debating and adopting a position on this issue.

Local governments are supposed to operate at the grassroots and thereby impact on the masses, more than any other tier of government. To do this successfully, they must also look inward to how they can generate revenue and protect the peoples’ interest without overtaxing or overburdening the people. This ideal must be replicated at the state level. That is what fiscal and true federalism is all about.