Who Benefits from Local Government Autonomy?

By Ayodele Okunfolami

Last Thursday, June 13, 2024, Justice Garba Lawal, who led the seven-member panel of Justices of the Supreme Court reserved judgment on a suit filed by the Federal Government against the 36 state governors to enforce the autonomy of administration of local government areas as stipulated in the 1999 Constitution. The Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), had gone to the apex court to issue an order prohibiting state governors from embarking on unilateral, arbitrary and unlawful dissolution of democratically elected local government leaders. The AGF also wants the Supreme Court to make an order permitting the funds standing to the credits of local governments to be directly channelled to them from the Federation Account as against joint accounts created by governors.

This move by the AGF is not a first. Talks on granting financial autonomy to local government councils have been ongoing since the beginning of the Fourth Republic and probably the Supreme Court ruling, if this suit gets a logical conclusion, will put paid to the argument. Ironically, Fagbemi, then a private lawyer, was on the side of the governors in December 2022 when he served as a plaintiff for the governors against Muhammadu Buhari administration’s attempt to enforce constitutional provisions stipulating autonomy for LGs. What has changed? Is the AGF playing politics or just doing the bidding of his paymaster per term?

The local government councils are seen as the closest to the people and so the word on the street is that if granted autonomy, the move on the dial for upward development would be made. However, things are not as direct as that. It is akin to the recurring arguments of state police, federalism, the shift to a parliamentary system of government, electoral reforms and others. Now, some overpaid idle hands have brought back the dim-witted proposal of a six-year single-term rotational presidency. Apart from having a way of distracting us from the more urgent issues, it slyly absorbs the elected leadership of its failures which in my opinion is the problem.

My knowledge of constitutional matters is pedestrian and will therefore not go through that turf. I would rather we look at the issue more holistically so that we will not put ourselves in another legal logjam that will require another constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court verdict to untangle.

Before we give financial autonomy, we need to be concerned about the people we directly want to hand this money to. The quasi-democratic way local government chairmen and councillors are being (s)elected leaves much to be desired. Voter apathy is palpable during the LG polls. The electorate seems to be more interested, vocal and assertive about the personality and performance of the president, governors and National Assembly members but indifferent about the local government chairs. But do we blame the electorate? These elections are for the most times in favour of the party of the sitting governor. That is why we see no difference between a “democratically elected” chairman and an imposed sole administrator.

Some have suggested that the Independent National Electoral Commission be given the mandate to conduct the grassroots elections instead of the State Independent Electoral Commissions. I think this constitutional proposal negates the principle of true federalism that the AGF is proposing. Also, INEC-conducted local council area elections of the Federal Capital Territory over time have followed the low-voter-turnout and ruling-party-victory patterns. In other words, it is beyond who conducts the election. Just as INEC was knocked in the past for its questioned impartiality, SIECs should also be given some time to build up as strong independent institutions.

The AGF should remember that both chambers of the National Assembly voted about two years ago for LG autonomy in one of its perennial constitutional amendment exercises which was rejected by no fewer than 11 states. We should rethink this thing. In my opinion, sovereign LGs may give us a dubious federal structure where state governments become weaker. We already have state governors passing the buck of infrastructure to the centre. Autonomous LGs will now make state governments lazier as they would hand off primary healthcare and education. That aside, states are today claiming insolvency and inability to pay the minimum wage, pensions and other fiscal responsibilities; is it local governments that have been unable to handle drainages and cholera that we expect to pay salaries? Will local government chairs now be given security votes to tackle insecurity?

As we anticipate the Supreme Court judgement, we should focus on political and sustainable solutions. First, the AGF, as a member of the Federal Executive Council, should table before his colleagues who are former governors why they disapprove of LG autonomy. He can also use his good offices to renegotiate the sharing formula because if the idea of LG autonomy centres around development, then the 774 local government areas cannot continue to get a paltry 20 per cent of the federal allocation while the Federal Government gets the lion’s share of more than 52 per cent.

Finally, I propose that as an alternative to making this tier of government autonomous, we should make them administrative departments, not political entities. What this implies is that instead of having to continuously cast meaningless votes that produce stereotypical results, the state governors should appoint senior civil servants to manage all the government agencies in the local councils. These council managers will serve as intermediaries between the local community and the government. What it also implies is that there will be no more federal allocations for local governments. What will be obtainable will just be federal and states’ accounts and those state allocations should no more be based on the number of local governments that were ‘unrighteously’ balkanised by the military.

Ayodele Okunfolami can be reached via 07031973457