LGs are Useless. Will JEG Change that?

By Garba Shehu   Newsdiaryonline  Wed Nov 23,2011

President Jonathan

The establishment of a 21-member Committee by President Goodluck Jonathan to review the constitution is heartwarming news to many Nigerians, especially those desirous of making our local government system workable and relevant. Headed by a retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Alfa Belgore, the Committee is packed with eminent Nigerians with diverse knowledge and experience. Therefore, at the risk of being intrusive, we have to set agenda for this Committee of eminent Nigerians who are saddled with the task of reviewing our constitution, which currently renders our local governments dysfunctional or utterly irrelevant because they are practically the appendages of state governors. Local governments as they are can only be justified by the constitution, not by the service they render.

A Constitution, anywhere in the world, is designed to protect the larger good of the society. Excessive concentration of power in the hands of any individuals, groups or institutions, especially where one tier of government is rendered irrelevant, is not in the interest of the society.

The 1976 local government reforms, initiated by the then Murtala/Obasanjo military regime, were intended to bring the government closer to the grassroots population. At that time, the local government system was evidently working. Today, however, with occasional constitutional amendments which threw away the larger public interest to please the ego of some narrow political interests, the local governments have systematically lost their power to perform their primary functions of providing social services to the people.

In fact, the local governments are so dysfunctional that thousands of rural dwellers have to run away to major cities, including Abuja, in quest of better life. With the collapse of the local government system, which exists only on paper, thousands of youths are thronging to the cities because of they are tired of the hopelessness of rural existence. An effective and sincerely implemented local government system could have halted the drift from rural areas to urban areas. The situation is so bad that rural dwellers sometimes waylay travelers and rob them of money and valuables. Robberies were unheard of in the countryside.

The introduction of the so-called joint account policy between the state governments and the local governments was the beginning of the erosion of the financial independence of the local councils. This arrangement is skewed against the local governments. It puts them at the mercy of the governors who decide what projects and the contractors to execute them for the local governments. A local government chairman cannot decide his own projects according to the needs and priorities of his people. Most governors deliberately undermine the chairmen by starving them of funds. In fact, they only give them money for salaries but maintain the monopoly on contract awards; the poor chairman is left with the burden of rubber stamping projects he didn’t initiate.

With their powers openly hijacked by the governors under the guise of the so-called joint accounts, the local government chairmen are automatically hamstrung to perform the duties assigned to them by the constitution. Powerless and helpless, the chairmen watch their funds being diverted by the governors. In fact, there is the allegation that the governors don’t want the chairmen to do so well because of the fear that such performance could make the chairmen popular. A popular chairman is perceived as a potential threat to the sitting governor, who wants to be the only shining star.

What is the point, therefore, having a situation where the local governments are not free to use their own federal subventions to develop their areas of responsibility? Is the public interest better served by a situation which forces democratically elected chairmen to go cap in hand begging for their own subventions from their governors? Is the unholy alliance between the Houses of Assembly and the governors to undermine the local governments in public interest? Is a situation whereby a governor, with the connivance with his pliant House of Assembly, can dissolve local governments before their constitutional tenure is due, also in the best interest of the people?

Whatever may be the wisdom of the so-called joint account system, the abuses we have seen in practice call for immediate review of this constitutional aberration. Essentially, getting rid of bad laws is one of the objectives of constitutional amendment. Most of the unpleasant features of our constitution today are caused by myopic and selfish considerations. Without financial independence, it is impossible to see how the local governments can execute projects of their needs and priorities.

The 1999 Constitution, put together by Justice Niki Tobi Committee, was one of the best documents ever produced. Unfortunately, the former Abdulsalami military regime that succeeded the late General Sani Abacha mutilated many useful items of the Abacha Constitution. Under the Abacha constitution, there was a clear provision of how to deal with a situation where a President dies suddenly in office as we had witnessed with the demise of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

According to that discarded constitution, if a sitting President dies in office, the Vice President could only hold office for three months before a fresh election was to be held to elect a new President from the same zone that produced the President in the first place. This provision was very imaginative and could have saved Nigeria the sad political scenario that followed the late Umaru Yar’Adua’s death, including the zoning controversy.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the Abdulsalami Abubakar administration threw away the baby with the bath water. Such myopia has almost always thrown Nigeria into needless crises. If the Jonathan Constitutional Amendment Committee stays focused on producing a workable and un-contentious document, his administration will leave a lasting legacy.

Let President Jonathan avoid the mistakes of some previous administrations that hid behind constitutional amendments to introduce self-serving items that had nothing to do with public interest. The 2006 attempted constitutional amendment died because of former President Obasanjo’s move to extend his 8-year-tenure, despite his term limit. Many important items in that document died automatically because of his desire to perpetuate himself in office. In this regard, the Justice Belgore – led Constitutional Review Committee should be allowed enough independence to produce a document that can serve the larger interest of Nigeria. President Jonathan’s reputation, success or failure, are bound up with the success of this latest effort to give Nigeria a workable and fairer constitution. This strange demand he has been making for a five, six or seven year term should be discarded forthwith, so that it is not a distraction. Who ever told the President that Nigerians are dissatisfied with the present tenure system of two terms of four years?

To achieve a fairer constitution, however, the independence of the local government councils must be addressed once and for all by the 21-member Justice Belgore Committee and the National Assembly in the latest efforts to amend our constitution. The current structure of the local governments is a farce and it is high time we had a constitution that restores them to functionality, relevance and effectiveness. The only way we can check the exodus of people from the local governments into the cities is to make them attractive by allowing them the freedom to spend their subventions on development. As it is, the local governments are now at the mercy of governors, who release only salaries to the local governments monthly. With no projects to execute, the staff of the local government only go to the office at the end of the month to collect their salaries. This wasn’t the original intention of creating the local government system.

As President Obama of the U.S. once advised African leaders, we should build strong institutions and not strongmen. Sadly, our governors are now behaving like overlords, wielding the power to determine the survival or death of the local government system.