The gradual erosion of governance at the local government level and the attendant collapse of both physical and administrative structures are leading legal experts and civil society organisations to pose serious questions about Nigeria’s democratic credentials with visible threats to constitutional orders.
The ongoing political battle between the Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara and a faction of the state assembly over the tenure of local government chairmen has also exposed the extent to which virtually all the states have gone to undermine the constitutional order, with local government elections dependent on the whims of the governors rather than the law.
Defence and security experts who spoke with LEADERSHIP Sunday backed a recent assertion by the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, that insecurity in many parts of the country, particularly the north, is linked to the absence of local government administration.
Stakeholders who spoke with LEADERSHIP Sunday identified corruption and political dominance as the major incentives pushing governors to disregard the constitution, and Supreme Court rulings and even resort to the deployment of violence in their efforts to control local council authorities and finances.
At stake is trillions of Naira of local government funds. Between January and May 2024, all three tiers of government shared N5.759 trillion from the federation account. The 774 LGAs received N1.416 trillion on this figure.
LEADERSHIP Sunday estimates that the 774 LGAs could collect as much as N3.39 trillion in the whole of 2024.
In January 2024, the LGAs got N288.928 billion, N278.041 billion in February, N267.153 billion in March, N288.688 billion in April, and N293.816 billion in May.
Investigations and expert opinion sought by LEADERSHIP Sunday also show that the effects of weak or absent local authorities is all-encompassing, undermining democracy, fueling insecurity, breeding corruption and raising tension between state governments and the general public on the one hand, and between the states and the federal government on another.
Findings by our correspondents show that virtually all of the present state governors have at one point or another appointed caretakers in breach of Nigerian laws and against Supreme Court rulings. Some, like Osun governor, Ademola Adeleke, have gone as far as sacking elected local government chairmen.
But Anambra could take the prize for illegality as our correspondent reports that local government elections were last held in 2014, a decade ago.
In Rivers State, where the debate has been about which of two wrongs will make a right, the tenure of the elected local government chairmen expired on June 17, 2024.
The governor immediately replaced them with caretakers, while the state assembly insisted it had extended their tenure through a a questionable piece of legislation.
States that have conducted LG elections within the last three years include Sokoto, Kaduna, Plateau, Yobe, Ebonyi, Enugu, Kebbi, Niger, Adamawa, Oyo, Katsina, Ekiti, Borno, Gombe and Edo.
Lagos last held LG elections in July 2021, but does not plan to hold another until 2025, exceeding the three years mandated by law.
In other states, local government elections were last held in Kwara State in 2017, 2018 in Imo, December 2020 in Kogi, October 2020 in Akwa Ibom, May 2020 in Cross River, and June 2021 in Jigawa, with no signs of elections holding soon.
Bauchi State last conducted local government elections in October 2020. In Abia, too, the last election was in 2020, while in Delta, it was in March 2021.
And while the federal government has tried various means to restore constitutionality and autonomy to the local government system, some legal luminaries have disagreed with the approach.
Several Senior Advocates of Nigeria are sharply divided over the suit filed by the federal government against the 36 states of the federation on autonomy for the 774 LGAs in the country.
The attorney-general of the federation (AGF) and minister of justice, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, had dragged the state governments to the Supreme Court over illegal control of LGs by the state governors.
Specifically, the suit is seeking full autonomy for local governments as the third tier of government in the country.
FG has no locus filing suit for LG autonomy – Awa Kalu
Dr Ahmed Raji, SAN, a former Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, in about five states including Kano; Chief Awa Kalu, SAN, Professor of law and former Attorney-Genetal of Abia state, and Barrister Paul Omoluabi, a constitutional lawyer, all took different positions on the federal government’s suit at the Supreme Court.
While Prof Kalu said the Association of Local Government of Nigeria, ALGON, should have been the legally recognised body to file the suit and not the FG, Dr Raji said since parties have surrendered themselves before the court, the apex court should be allowed to determine the matter one way or the other.
Prof Kalu said, “The proper court to go to, to decide the suit one way or the other is the Supreme Court. The federal government has no locus filing suit on behalf of LGs; why can’t the LGs speak for themselves; after all, they have an umbrella, ALGON, that can do that on their behalf.”
But Dr Raji said, “This case has been submitted for determination, and judgement is being expected, and as a senior lawyer, I should not anticipate what is going to be the judgement of the court. If it is not yet subjudice, it is within my right to comment but being a counsel who has taken a petition and has taken the matter for determination, it would be grossly irresponsible of me to make comments that would try to over-reach the decision of the court.”
On the conduct of LG election, Professor Kalu said the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has no business with LG elections. He also condemned governors that withhold LG funds.
He said, “It is all propaganda; INEC has no business with local government election; it has not even been able to handle its own primary responsibilities well and you still want to hand over another one to it. It is pure propaganda to say you want to hand over LG election to INEC.
“There is no lacuna in the law guiding local governmnent election; it’s all propaganda. There is a Supreme Court judgement that talks about the state having something to do with the running of the local government. There is a Supreme Court judgement to that effect. The Supreme Court made it clear that you can’t be in Abuja and be conducting LG elections in the states.”
Raji on his part said withholding LG funds could lead to anarchy.
According to him, the drafters of the law did not envisage a vacuum in local government administration.
He said, “It is not contemplated that there will be a vacuum; the drafters of our laws did not anticipate that there will be long vacuum after the departure of one regime before another regime comes in. So to find the justification for it may be difficult, but under the doctrine of necessity the governor may be right to put caretaker government in place, but under the constitution, there should be a democratically elected local government but where election is impossible due to disease outbreak that may result in an election not being held, then, the state law will have to provide for a means to keep the government wheels running, but it is not in the contemplation of the law that you can say a tenure is over and there is a gap for one or two years.”
On the conduct of LG elections by INEC, he said the call became necessary because it is believed that the governors are not doing the right thing, as regards the conduct of LG elections.
He said rather than ask INEC to conduct LG elections, the loopholes should be blocked and state independent electoral commissions (SIECs) strengthened to conduct credible elections.
“The reason for this is, it is believed governors are just “messing” up with SIECs; where is the assurance that INEC will fare better?
“I think we need to deepen democracy. If there is anything which the state commission is doing which is not proper, I think we need to block the loopholes and see that they are up and doing because over-centralisation has its own problem.
“I think the monitoring should be more and the judiciary should intervene decisively where there is no semblance of election in any state in respect of the local government councils, so maybe if one or two of them are made examples”, he said.
He also spoke on the attitude of the state governors to withhold LG funds in contravention of the law.
To him, the issue has been put to rest by the Supreme Court in the case between AG Lagos State vs AGF.
He said it is grossly illegal for a governor to withhold funds meant for LG administration.
He said withholding funds meant for the running if govermnent affairs at any level could lead to anarchy.
Constitutional lawyer, Barrister Paul Omoluabi, quoted Section 162(3) of the 1999 Constitution which states:
“The amount standing to the credit of the local government council in the Federation Account shall be paid directly to the local government council.”
He said, “Section 162(4) of the Constitution allows the president to withhold funds from the Federation Account if a state or local government fails to comply with the provisions of the Constitution or any law enacted by the National Assembly.
Ungoverned Spaces Fueling insecurity
Security experts have attributed rising insecurity in the country to the absence of effective local government administration and called for local government autonomy.
The experts said effective local government administration would identify brewing security threats and tackle them to avoid their escalation.
Maj-Gen James Nyam (rtd) said the local government area security committee are formed to identify brewing threats and solve them.
“We have 774 LGAs in Nigeria by the Constitution of The Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended). Among the administrative structure of the LGAs, there is an LGA Security Committee which is composed of the LGA chairman as chair, representative of the Armed Forces, the Police, DSS, traditional and religious institutions and other critical stakeholders such as union leaders and CSOs where they exist in that LGA.”
He said the committee serves as a veritable tool identifying all forms of insecurity brewing in the LGA, tracking the sources, isolating them and tackling them.
He, however, said the dislocation of LGAs by state governments had created a vacuum where nobody is carrying out that responsibility.
Speaking further, he said the absence of local government has excluded a lot of Nigerians from political participation, thereby leaving a large population idle.
“Secondly, the LGAs offer the largest platform for inclusiveness and political participation at the grassroots. When you dislocate the LGAs, inadvertently, you are excluding majority of Nigerians from political participation. They are then left idle and the only thing that might result from that situation is insecurity…That is what we currently have in Nigeria in very exponential proportions.”
He identified corruption as the reason for the failure of the LG system.
“It is all due to corruption. We have allowed state governors to take charge of local government funds and they are not ready or willing to let go. It’s my hope that the suit filed by the federal government, pursuant to reinstating LGA autonomy, is the right way to go and, if successful, would assuage or address, majorly, our prevailing security challenges!”
On his part, Brig-Gen Sani Usman (rtd) said an effective local government administration will help address security challenges since most of the challenges are local.
“I have been saying the autonomy and effective functioning of the local government is one of the most critical aspects of fighting poverty, corruption and, most importantly, insecurity in the country. Therefore, there is a very strong link between those issues and local governance. The bulk of the security challenges are local and the solution is local. For example, banditry and kidnapping in the northwest, to the large extent, were due to the mishandling of herders-farmers clashes which could have been mitigated at the local level”.
Governors Behind Failure In LGs – CSOs
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working to ensure local government autonomy have accused state governors of causing the failure of the local government system.
They, however, say that scrapping the LG system will not resolve the issues of insecurity and underdevelopment.
The CSOs argue that only financial autonomy will address the problems in the local governments.
According to the CSOs, the collapse of LGs is due to the governors hijacking their funds and not allowing them to fulfill their mandates.
The national team leader of Engaged Citizens, John Mutu,
Highlighted that the lack of financial autonomy and administrative autonomy is the root of the problem.
Mutu stressed the importance of LGs managing their resources and being accountable to the people.
He expressed concern that if the governors appoint caretaker chairmen, they will only be accountable to the governors and not to the people at the grassroots.
Mutu, who previously served as the deputy national team leader of PERL-ECP, a governance programme funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO), stated that caretakers appointed by the governors at the local government level should not exist.
He explained that the constitution does not provide for caretakers in the absence of elections.
Mutu suggested that the head of administration in the local government, who is the LG secretary, should take charge until elections are conducted.
“If there are no elections, the natural succession should be the most senior civil servant,” Mutu said.
Meanwhile, CSOs and other stakeholders advocating for local government autonomy have organised a one-day planning and reflection meeting in Abuja.
This meeting aims to assess their successes in advocating for local government autonomy and leverage the ongoing constitution amendment.
The CSOs and organised groups believe that the clamour for local government autonomy and independence will ultimately be achieved.