AUTONOMY OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN NIGERIA: ISSUES AND THE WAY FORWARD
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Local government administration in Nigeria has been in existence since 1972 and its primary function is to bring government nearer to the people at the grassroots. Its inefficiency and ineffectiveness in addressing the primary needs and wants of the people at the grass root has made the thirds tiers of government irrelevance in the administration of the country lowest tiers of government to the people. The local government councils are expected to serve the people’s interest in areas of road constructions, public markets, healthcare facilities, motor parks, building primary schools, potable waters and so on. This is because, local Administration is the concern of the grass root people in the provision of social and economic amenities to the rural area where they come from, making it government at the grassroots.
Since the inception of the system of local government in Nigeria, there had been persistent clamour for the autonomy of the local government as the third tier of governance in the federation. It is important to note that the federal government has over the years joined in ensuring that the local government have its autonomy. In the forward of the guidelines for the 1979 local government reforms, it was clearly stated that, the states have continued to encroach upon what would have been the exclusive preserve of local governments. In order to strengthen the autonomy and philosophy of government at the local level, The Federal government guaranteed the statutory nature of local government by embodying it in the 1979 constitution. In section 7(1) of the constitution, it was stated that, “the system of democratically elected local government councils is under this constitution guaranteed”. Even the military administration of General Ibahim Babangida from 1986 took bold steps to strengthen the autonomy of local government. By January 1988, good measures of autonomy came the way local government with the scrapping of the state ministries of local government throughout the country thus removing the political control and bureaucratic redtapism perpetuated by these state ministries.
Local government is widely acknowledged as a viable instrument for rural transformation and for delivery of social services to the people. It is strategically located to fulfill the above functions because of its physical and psychological distant between officials of the other tiers of government responsiveness, and simplicity of operations.
However, despite the strategic importance of the local government to the national development process, its contribution has been minimal. Some observers in the past attempted to provide reasons for the ineffectiveness of local government in the development process. While others agree that the ineffectiveness of local government derives primarily from excessive government control. Admittedly, states have undermined the financial viability of local government by diverting statutorily allocated grants for local governments as well as encroaching on their revenue yielding functions like markets, Motor Parks, tenement rates, Liquor licensing.
Obviously, the current campaign by the National Union of Local Government Employees’ (NULGE) and fears shown by teachers against the Local government autonomy are result of behaviour and attitudes of the persons who operated the system, and treated local governments as a super ordinate and subordinate tier of government.
Be that is it may, the Local government commission should be strengthened to coordinate, advise on periodic reviews of structural arrangements set standards that would determine policies on local government training programmes.
