Public debate over local government autonomy did not start today. We have been nursing this sick child right from the outset of the Fourth Republic in 1999. Twenty-five years down the line, the sick child isn’t getting any better with the choice of medication being administered on it. Its condition keeps deteriorating by the day.
The situation calls for a change in prescription if we are truly serious about saving the child. Attempts by a new physician at changing prescription have now thrown a huge ball of controversy on our flabby laps. We play around with the precept of local governments being the closest to the people. Our politicians dress them up as the “grassroots” to suit their campaign objectives. But that is where it ends. There is hardly any example of the existing 774 local governments across the country where the trumpeted precept of “government at the grassroots” fits in. It has never gone beyond sloganeering targeted at vote harvesting at election seasons.
Local governments in Nigeria are hapless orphans. They have become hapless appendages of avaricious resource grabbers in the 36 government houses. That is the stark reality on the ground. And gluttonous predators will continue to feed fat on them if they are not protected. Almost daily, we get inundated with tales of under-the-counter transactions between governors and their local government chairmen in the disbursement of council allocations.
They are mainly get-one-naira-and-sign-for-ten scenarios. In most cases, the exchange is muffled and the council boss is sandbagged into considering the rip-off as an uncommon favour from His Excellency. You take whatever pinch your governor sprinkled in your palm from your entire council allocation or you get replaced with a caretaker chairman the next day if you complain. You go back to your council and wait another 30 days for the arrival of yet another steaming broth from Abuja. See no evil, speak no evil.
Those who don’t know about this spoon and ladle exchange are not yet born. Let’s take a former chairman of Ijebu East local government in Ogun State, Mr Wale Adedayo as a case study. Sometime in August 2023, Adedayo screamed from the rooftops, accusing the Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, of diverting statutory allocations to the 20 local governments in the state. The council boss followed it up with letters to some prominent All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders in the state urging them to prevail on the governor to do the right thing. He filed a petition with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with details of the alleged executive heist.
There was an immediate backlash from the governor but Adedayo did not flinch. The rest members of the local council executive committee Adedayo presided over as chairman quickly distanced themselves from the petition they co-signed with their chairman. They then filed out from their base in Ijebu-Ife to the Government House in Abeokuta where they all prostrated before the governor and pleaded for his “forgiveness”. They all denied having anything to do with the petition against the governor. They threw their chairman under a fast-moving bus. It was a humiliating sightseeing men who were elected as councillors, with wives and children at home, in a viral video prostrating before another elected officeholder.
Pronto, Wale Adedayo was suspended from office, got impeached, got arrested and detained by police and DSS. He was taken to court where the familiar, “That you, Wale Adedayo, (m)…..which offence is punishable under Section 375 of Criminal Code laws of Ogun State, 2006.” Ten months down the line, the Ogun people are still waiting for their governor to make good his threat “to defend himself” against the allegation. And the beat goes on. That is the way local governments are being run all over the country but the chairmen lack the balls to holler the way Adedayo did.
In a feeble attempt at defending himself, Governor Abiodun claimed the councils in his states were receiving their monthly allocations in full. His counterparts across the federation have been mouthing the same refrain. So if governors have been releasing council allocations as they claim, then why are they opposed to having the councils get their allocations directly from the federal purse? The devil is in the details. But the details are about to unravel with the case filed at the Supreme Court by the Federal Government against the governors.
The suit, filed by the Attorney General of the Federation on behalf of the Federal Government, seeks to abolish the obnoxious States-Local Governments Joint Account. If the apex court rules in favour of the applicants, then the local governments will start receiving their allocations directly from the central till. But the governors will not let go without a fight hence the barrage of conspiracy theories being woven around the suit.
The frenzied media attack is being directed at President Bola Tinubu.
According to one of the theories, the president is plotting to steamroller the leadership of the 774 councils across the federation into his unspoken 2027 re-election bandwagon. How the president intends to browbeat the councils into supporting his fabled re-election bid with direct allocation to them is yet to be seen.
The argument stands on one leg. It’s the same way President Tinubu was accused of plotting a relocation of the Central of Bank Nigeria’s head office from Abuja to Lagos when the apex bank moved some of its departments to Lagos in a strategic administrative balancing.
Also, recall the threats of fire and thunder from certain quarters when the Aviation Ministry moved FAAN to Lagos for ease of operation. The obvious dense Lagos air traffic that necessitated the relocation was deliberately downplayed by the critics. And to think that FAAN was originally headquartered in Lagos in the first place before politics relocated it to Abuja. Abuja still retains the head offices of the CBN and the aviation ministry till tomorrow. But it matters very little to the careerist critics.
Past administrations, including the lethargic Muhammadu Buhari regime, tried in vain to break the State-Local Government Joint Account jinx. The governors resisted the move with every weapon at their disposal, not excluding blackmail. The heavy weather being made of the move to free the councils from economic strangulation is uncalled for.
What should be of concern to Nigerians now and in the future is how to evolve effective people-driven checks and balances to prevent the councils from guzzling their allocations when liberated. A system of accountability will require FAAC to publish whatever is being released to the councils every month so that the people at the grassroots can follow the money.
Those asking the National Assembly to effect constitutional changes to the status quo should stop wasting their time. That option will require a yes vote from 24 of the 36 state assemblies. It would be a miracle if five of the 36 go with it. It is convenient for anyone to luxuriate in their comfort zone and argue against financial autonomy for the councils. If anyone should oppose the abolition of the joint account, let it be the folks in whose localities primary school pupils take lessons under trees. Or folks who drink water from tadpole-infested brooks and those who compete with cattle for drinking water.
Many local communities are still contending with leprosy, elephantiasis, filariasis and other better-forgotten infestations.
It’s sheer insanity to sustain a fundamentally defective system for 25 years and still expect different results. States-Local Governments Joint Account is fraud and credit must go to Tinubu for making the current efforts to end it. It must be discarded once and for all. And if that would make Tinubu the foster father of the 774 orphan councils so be it.
Ogunwale, a journalist and public affairs commentator, writes from Abuja.
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