Last Thursday, the 4th of July 2013, the House of Representatives ad hoc committee on the review of the constitution submitted its report to the House. The committee had exhaustively dealt with several of the contentions issues in the country. Unarguably, one of such issues was that of granting autonomy to the local government councils in the country. The committee had voted in favour of abrogating the state local government joint account and the conduct of elections into the councils by the states Independent Electoral Commission. The Senate had earlier taken the same stance. Such amendments, if adopted, will enable the councils to regain their pre-1999 status, especially as it relates to uniformity of tenure, direct funding from the federation account and conduct of elections into the councils by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
It has to be noted that since the Gen. Abdulsani Abulbakar’s 1999 constitution inserted the two toxic provisions namely the local joint account and state Independent electoral Commissions, the fortunes of the local councils has progressively declined. Reports across the country indicate that compliance with the provisions has been more in the breach and abuse. The provisions which inadvertently put the local government councils under the grip of the state governments and their Houses of Assembly inadvertently turned the councils into more or less vassal fiefdoms of the state governors. Since the provisions became operational, the management of the council funds have been characterised by a great deal of sleaze and outright looting. The high turnover of ex governors and other state officials who are standing trial for the looting of their council treasures attests to these facts. The control and abuse of council funds were enhanced by the existence of the state independent electoral commissions which, as experience has shown, usually ensured that only favoured candidates of the governors won elections into the councils. The abuse of the councils is equally exemplified by the instability of tenure which the governors have enthroned. The use of appointed stooges as caretaker committee members with no defined tenure seems to be norm now rather than the exemption. The implication of all these is that such mismanagement of councils’ funds and autocracy at the third tier has led to massive underdevelopment of rural Nigeria. In fact, the fate of the local councils sticks out like a sore thumb in this our nascent democracy. The councils have been made to regress to their pre-1976 levels. However, things have not always been this way with the councils. There had been various efforts in the past to reform the local government system in Nigeria and make them more efficient in the performance of their functions starting from the 1976 local government reforms. This reform brought a lot of improvements in the local government administration. It was this reform that clearly established local councils as a different tier of government with direct funding from the federation account. The reforms also made provisions for direct elections into the councils with clear uniformity of tenure nation wide. The Gen Ibrahim Babangida decrees of 1988 and 1991 further enhanced these reforms with increased allocation from the Federation and the introduction of the presidential system into the councils which further enhanced democratic practice there in.
All these improvements and reforms which took years to achieve were completely erased and obliterated with the operation of the 1999 constitution which inserted the toxic and obnoxious provisions that have seen the local government councils in a comatose state today.
However, attempts at freeing the councils from the iron grip of the state governments have always met with stiff resistance from the benefiting parties. The present opposition to the amendment has also come from some unusual quarters, the chief amongst which is the Action Congress of Nigeria. In fact, it is surprising that a party that claims progressive pretensions should be the one that is championing the retention of a retrogressive law. It is however gladdening that a lot other interest groups are all disposed to accepting the National Assembly report. It is said that the presidency is favourably disposed to the report. The same has also been said of the PDP, the CPC, and the Labour Party. It is in this context that it has to be realised that the battle is yet to be won. This makes it imperative that all well meaning Nigerians, labour unions, civil society groups, the media etc should support the National Assembly and the presidency in the quest to ensure that the councils are saved from their comatose state.