The relevance of local government councils in the scheme of governance has again come under heavy scrutiny with many politicians and top technocrats advocating extensive review of their functions with a view to making them more purposeful and serviceable. Discussants and participants at the National Workshop for Local Government Development in Nigeria organized by Daily Trust in partnership with Nigerian Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPPS at Kuru, near Jos, last week raised fundamental issues about the disposition of the local government councils which many believed have outlived their usefulness as the third tier of government in this country.
Vice-President Yomi Osinbajo, represented at workshop by the Permanent Secretary in the Office of the Head of Service, Mr. Emmanuel Ogbonnaya, noted with grave concern how local government councils have been reduced to a mere administrative extensions of state governments and the resultant effect of that was their gross inability to transform the lives of the people at the grassroots. He also decried how this development has rendered the local government councils completely corrupt, undisciplined and highly inefficient.
There is no gainsaying the fact that the dismal failure of the local government councils had now projected them in poor light, seen as a very weak model for governance. In fact the councils have progressively moved away from the traditional role of serving the people at the grassroots level to that of a moribund authorities that promote decadence and degeneration, leaving their subjects in extreme conditions of hopelessness and difficulties.
The workshop was held at a time when there was an absolute need to examine the issues of the autonomy of the local councils and the role of state governors whose effective grip on them had proved to be almost disastrous, reducing their strength to the point of weakness through expropriating their revenues and needless interference in the running of their affairs.
It is therefore necessary to use the real meaning and the intention of this workshop to promote and support efficiency in local government administration with a view to reinforce their operational capacities and be in a position to act authoritatively and make decisions independently.
One area that caught the attention of the workshop’s participants was the issue of local government elections, raised by the former Secretary to the Government of Federation, Alhaji Mahmud Yayale Ahmed who categorically advocated its abolition to save funds. He argued that local government elections are a waste of resources and funds, having woefully failed to produce the desired political leadership at the local level.
Yayale’s experience had shown him that ruling political parties in various states of the federation manipulate the polls to impose candidates on the people, thereby ignoring the essence of the exercise and defeating its main objective.
This is indeed a noteworthy comment illustrating the decadence and depravity that attend the conduct of local government elections as was informed by the activities of state governors that appoint the staff of the local electoral commissions whom they manipulate like puppets to achieve their desired objectives with the polls. It has been proved beyond reasonable doubt, time and again, that no ruling party ever loses local council polls. The results have always conclusively favored the ruling party in the state, its political clout in the country notwithstanding.
No matter how hard politicians preach against electoral malpractices and appeal for decency, civility and transparency in the conduct of local council elections, they tend to compromise their moral and ethical considerations as they descend so low to commit worst atrocities connected with electoral malpractices. The result of local council elections conducted by state electoral commissions are always previously completed or pre-determined with even a child able to predict the outcome. Sometimes it is an overwhelming victory for a ruling party with a hundred-percent success for all the candidates it had fielded. In fact, what will marvel Nigerians is the defeat of the candidates of an incumbent governor and the reasons why his party had allowed itself to be crushed despite the enormous resources at its disposal.
From the foregoing, therefore, Yayale Ahmed was right in observing that continuing the conduct of local elections in this country, against such background, is unnecessary waste of time and resources; rather a more convenient way of producing the local council leaders should be developed through constitutional means. This is a food for thought for our leaders who must consider exploring this option in the future efforts to review the constitution so as to accommodate this novel and revolutionary suggestion by a veteran public servant.
Nevertheless, the move to make local governments more effective and responsible to yearnings and aspirations of their people must start with the conduct of free, credible and fair elections which must be guarded against the unwarranted influence and superfluous interference of the state governors. The taste of the pudding, they say, is in the eating; the efficacy and acceptability of these suggestions will be seen in the states that are to conduct their local council elections very soon. That’s when Nigerians will actually know if the results are either reliable or the governors are indeed democratic, dictatorial or despotic.
