The polity is presently rocked by dissolution of council administrations – elected or appointed, and subsequent appointment of caretaker committees in their stead by newly elected governors to perhaps pave the way for continued diversion of the councils’ funds. DGossip247 reports
Local councils are the closest tier of government to Nigerians, but the populace in the country’s 774 councils, have over the years, failed to enjoy the benefits of local governments’ creation, especially in the area of service delivery. This explains the call by some Nigerians for a change in the local government system as presently constituted in order to make the councils conform to present day reality – grassroots development.
The two primary objectives spelt out in the Local Governments’ Reform of 1976 are: To promote participatory democracy, and ensure rapid socio-economic development at the local level. Some stakeholders argue that the desired dividends will not accrue to the people until the councils are freed from the grip of the various state governments through constitution amendment. Section 7(1) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended) guarantees a system of local government by democratically elected government councils.
However, the second component of the section makes the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of the local governments dependent on state laws. Inadvertently, the constitution, also makes it possible for state governments to cripple the local governments financially, by rout-ing funds standing to their credit in the Federation Account through the States/Local Governments’ Joint Account rather than directly to them.
The Federal Government had argued during the introduction of the policy that it will bring even development to all parts of the country and prevent government officials at the state or local level from corruptly enriching themselves. But the arrangement has, over time, adversely affected the financial viability of the councils as some state governments have continued to make inexplicable deductions from their respective accounts.
Section 162 (8) of the Constitution which explains how the amount standing in the joint accounts should be distributed to local governments in each state, states: “The amount standing to the credit of local government councils of a state shall be distributed among the local government councils of that state on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the House of Assembly of the state.”
But rather than ensure fiscal responsibility, the law has provided a window for state governments which are constitutionally required to fund the councils, to instead hold them hostage as well as make them their appendages. In practice, the operation of the joint account has denied the local governments their financial autonomy. It should be noted that the state governments were not meant to be beneficiaries of the account but trustees.
Against this backdrop, they (states) are required to maintain the account for the benefit of the local governments by ensuring that funds allocated to the third tier of government is equitably and fairly shared among the councils, adhering strictly to constitutionally stipulated criteria. The question that arises over this is: Have the leadership in the respective 36 states of the federation adhered to this constitutional provision?
The answer is not farfetched as reports from across the country indicate that most governors have continued to run the joint account contrary to its intention. Instances abound where governors hand out only wage bills to council chairmen in their respective domains as well as make illegal and sundry deductions from the joint account. What could have aided these constitutional breaches? There is no explanation other than the same Section 7 of the constitution. This section has helped shield and create escape routes for governors who manipulate local government affairs.
“Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution, which empowers the states to determine the structure, composition, finance and functions of councils has been the anti-development instruments used to frustrate every progressive and patriotic action to make the local government work since the return of the country to democracy in 1999,” a local government employee told New Telegraph.
He described the joint account arrangement as a rip-off. According to him, local governments’ chairmen, by the arrangement are in the dark over how much their councils received monthly from the Federation Account. “Today, local governments do not know how much they receive as monthly allocation from the Federation Account.
What happens is that council chairmen submit wage bills to the Auditor- General for onward submission to the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, who tinkers the budget and release funds to them after deductions by the Joint Account Committee to pay salaries and running cost. Allocations to the local governments are not made public unlike in the past,” he said.
A civil society group, Youths for Human Rights Protection and Transparency Initiative (YARPTI), which held similar view, said the governors are hell bent on maintaining the status quo to continue to loot allocations accruing to the third tier of government.
The group cited example of Imo State under the Rochas Okorocha administration. YARPTI’s director, Kenneth Uwadi, said: “A huge con game is taking place in so many Nigerian states where governors have refused to conduct council election and have been using caretaker officials to loot council funds.
“Today, the councils in Imo State are dysfunctional. LGA funds in the state are held hostage and the people are deprived the opportunity to function democratically. Okorocha and his caretaker committee chairmen are looting these monies. They are using local government revenue and allocations to enrich themselves.”
Road to autonomy
The governors’ grip of the councils may have informed the consensus that financial autonomy be granted to the local governments during the last amendment process to the 1999 Constitution by the Seventh National Assembly. For instance, the House of Representatives report on public sessions in the country’s 360 federal constituencies then showed that the people voted overwhelmingly for financial autonomy for the councils; their proper recognition as a third-tier of government, while rejecting allocation of funds to caretaker executives of local governments. Consequently, the National Assembly approved financial and administrative autonomy for the councils by amending section 124 of the 1999 Constitution in October 2014.
The section provides a consequential provision for making the councils a full third-tier government without undue interference from the state governments. A striking feature of the amendment of the section was the abolishing of State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs) and creation of the office of the Auditor-General of the Local Government as well as the State Local Government Service Commission.
Setback
The journey to freedom, however, suffered a setback when the document was sent to the states for consideration in fulfilment of the constitutional requirement for a two-third yes votes by the state Houses of Assembly for the amendment to be effective. To the amazement of most Nigerians, 20 out of the 36 states Assembly rejected autonomy for local governments while 16 states voted in support.
The 20 states which voted against were: Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Enugu, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kwara, Lagos, Ondo, Osun, Rivers, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara. States that gave the yes votes were: Adamawa, Anambra, Abia, Bauchi, Benue, Edo, Gombe, Imo, Kebbi, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Oyo, Plateau and Sokoto.
The proposed amendments which was rejected had stated that “a local government council not democratically elected shall not be recognised by all authorities and persons and shall not be entitled to any revenue allocation from the Federation Account or the state government.”
It added: “It shall not also exercise any function exercisable by a local government council under this Constitution or any law for the time being in force; and shall stand dissolved at the expiration of a period of four years, commencing from the date the members of the council were sworn in.”
Governors’ role
While many were astonished by the states Assembly rejection, discerning minds were not in the dark over the arm-twisting that culminated to such decision. The governors were at the centre of the power play responsible for the rejection votes as they never hid their objection to autonomy for the councils.
The then chairman of the Nige-ria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and immediate past governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Amaechi, insisted that governors would not give up in their campaign against local governments autonomy. Amaechi said they were opposed to autonomy because they believe that the councils should not be designated as federating units. He also argued that countries all over the world maintain two tiers of government and Nigeria should not be an exception.
The then Jonah Jang’s faction of the Forum also kicked against the move by the National Assembly. In a statement then by its Secretary, Osaro Onaiwu, the Forum accused some National Assembly members of using the conference committee to force through an amendment that was clearly rejected by the Senate during the amendment debates and votes.
The Forum described the push for local government autonomy by the National Assembly as hasty without first considering the problems of executive recklessness and ineffective administration at the local level and warned that the amendment will lead to the hijack of some local government administrative structures by a few powerful individuals without the oversight the state government currently provides.
Similar views were held by the current Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola, who have persistently argued that local government autonomy will remain impracticable except there is a fundamental restructuring of the federal system of government. His words: “There is no provision for the local government system in a federal structure.
It is only the government at the centre and the state government that exist in a federal system of government. Local government should not be seen to be outside the state government. Allocation going direct to local governments defeats the principle of federalism but that doesn’t mean that the councils should not enjoy some level of freedom.”
“The local governments must be the creation of the states and supervised by them, including their structures,” Aregbesola added, drawing inference from the federal systems in the United States, Switzerland, Austria and Germany to buttress his position.
The trend continues
The trend has always been that as soon as a new governor, especially from the opposition party comes to power, the local government structure would be dissolved. And any succeeding chairman who refuses to allow his/her federal allocation to be tampered with gets the boot. At present, the polity is being rocked by dissolution of council administrations – elected or appointed – by some newly elected governors and subsequent appointment of caretaker committees in their stead.
The states, so far involved are Akwa Ibom, Plateau, Kaduna, Bauchi, Rivers, Niger, Benue and Kebbi. Some others have gotten approval from their respective Assembly to go ahead to sack duly elected council chairmen, and it is a matter of days they carry out the directive.
The gale of sack, however, calls to mind the July 2014 ruling of the Supreme Court that state governors do not have the powers to sack elected officials. The apex court, had while delivering judgment in the case of the removal of 148 elected local government officials by the Abia State government in 2006, unanimously held that the action was illegal and amounted to “official recklessness.”
Akwa Ibom
The Akwa Ibom House of Assembly, last Thursday, dissolved the 31 Local Government Councils in the state. The Speaker of the House, Hon. Aniekan Uko, who made the pronouncement in Uyo, directed the chairmen to handover all government property to the councils’ Head of Service.
He said this was in line with the 1999 Constitution as amended, as the tenure of the present local government chairmen would expire by 12 midnight on July 10. Uko recalled that the councils were inaugurated on July 11, 2012 for a three-year tenure. The Speaker also directed the Clerk of the House, Mrs. Mandu Umoren, to communicate the decision of the House to Governor Udom Emmanuel for necessary action.
Plateau
In Plateau, Governor Simon Lalong, denounced his earlier promise not to tamper with the structures at the local government level even though they are basi-cally Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-controlled, claiming that he believes in the rule of law. The governor had during a visit by the council chairmen before his inauguration, pledged that he would not tamper with the structures at the local government.
But in a twist last week, he approved and announced the immediate dissolution of the councils with immediate effect. Probably, worst hit by the dissolution was the chairman of Langtang North Local Government Area, Mr. Daniel Dul, who was only sworn in three weeks ago by Lalong. Dul had won his mandate at the tribunal after a protracted legal battle and was sworn in by the governor only to be sacked alongside others a few days later.
Kaduna
Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, was less than two weeks in office when he sacked 23 local government sole administrators, and secretaries of development areas appointed by his predecessor. He, however, replaced them recently with another set of appointed sole administrators though he granted them fiscal autonomy as the state and local government joint account has been abolished. The governor also announced that henceforth, 10 per cent of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) would be remitted to local government councils.
He said with this development, council chairmen cannot afford to fail the people, warning the sole administrators to desist from residing outside their localities. According to him, any of them who cannot live within the locality should vacate the office. His words: “You have no excuse to fail.
Perform and bring real development to our state at the local government level. I am using this occasion to fulfil our campaign promise. During the campaigns, we said we will not hold local gov-ernment funds if elected. “Therefore, I am happy to inform you that the government under our watch has formally abolished joint account in Kaduna State, there will be no more holding of local government funds hostage under the pretence of joint account.
“I also wish to inform you that the government will do its best to be remitting 10 per cent of the state’s IGR to the local government areas. Like I said, we must deliver, we can’t let our people down. “In addition, you are to swing into action and commence carrying out meaningful projects in all the wards in your council. Already there is a blueprint of proposed development which you will see and work with as a guide to taking development to our communities.”
Niger
Following the dissolution trend, Governor Abubakar Bello of Niger State, also last week, announced the dissolution of the caretaker committees of the 25 councils in the state. But, unlike his counterparts, Bello directed that Directors of Personnel Management in the councils to “take charge” until further notice to avoid creating vacuum in the council’s administration.
Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Dr. Ibraheem Dooba, who spoke on the development, said his principal consulted widely before the dissolution and expressed optimism that the new order will have no negative consequences on his administration.
“The governor consulted widely before dissolving the council caretaker committee chairmen and I am sure we will do anything that will go against the law, exceeding the constitutional three months mandate in office before conducting council election. “The government has not perpetrated any illegality by dissolving the caretaker committee chairmen constituted by the immediate past Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration of Babangida Aliyu in January and renewed in April 2015,” Dooba said. He stated that Bello has consequently directed the Niger State Independent Electoral Commission (NSIEC) to prepare for possible conduct of local government council election soon.
Bauchi
In Bauchi, Governor Mohammed Abubakar, while announcing the dissolution of all local govern-ment caretaker committees in a state broadcast three days after his inauguration, directed them to hand over the affairs of the local governments to their respective heads of personnel management. He said: “Let me use this occasion to formally announce the dissolution of all local government caretaker committees with immediate effect.
The respective administrators are directed to hand over all affairs of local governments to their head of personnel management.” The sacked caretakers committees were appointed in June 2014, by the then administration of Mallam Isa Yuguda.
Benue
The Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom, equally approved the dissolution of the 23 local government caretaker committees in the state just few days in office. A statement signed by Barrister Targema Takema, Secretary to the State Government (SSG) directed caretaker committee chairmen to hand over to the Directors, General Services and Administration of their local governments. The statement requested the directors to ensure quick handing over and taking over so as to facilitate smooth governance at the third tier of government.
Kebbi
On July 2, the Kebbi State governor, Atiku Bagudu, announced the dissolution of the 21 local government councils of the state. His action followed the court’s dismissal of a suit filed by the council chairmen challenging their sack from office. The council chairmen had argued that they ought to be in office for four years, not two, having commenced their tenure on September 17, 2012.
The governor who was represented by his deputy, Samaila Yombe, at a press briefing to announce the dissolution, said the dissolution is with immediate effect. He directed all the chairmen to immediately hand over their offices and the government properties in their possessions to the Directors of Personnel Management in their respective councils. He also approved the immediate redeployment of local government secretaries, cashiers and account clerks who are above grade level 07 to local government service commission for re-assignment.
Rivers
Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, also relied on the court to sack the 22 local government council chairmen elected on May 23 by then outgoing administration of former Governor Amaechi. A Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt on July 9 averred that the conduct of the election that produced the council chairmen was not only illegal but an affront on the court because the matter was pending in court, noting that the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) and the state government were directed not to go ahead with the poll but the order of court was fragrantly disobeyed.
The election was conducted by the Prof. Augustine Ahiazu-led defunct RSIEC. Wike, shortly after the ruling last week Thursday forwarded names of caretaker chairmen to state Assembly, which immediately approved them and they were sworn in same day.
However, the new council bosses are yet to take charge as men of the state Police Command, the following day (Thursday), barricaded entrances into the secretariats of 22 out of the 23 local government councils in the state, denying the newly sworn in caretaker committees access to the councils. The policemen said their action was based on intelligence report that some persons were planning violence in reaction to the court’s sacking of the council chairmen elected at the twilight of Amaechi’s administration.
Kastina
In Katsina, it is just a matter of days before the council chairmen are sacked as the state Assembly, last week, recommended the immediate dissolution of the 34 local government councils in the state. Also recommended by the House was the probe of the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs and scrapping of the state/ local government joint account to allow some autonomy and ensure development in the grassroots.
The recommendations were the high points of a report of the Special Committee of the Assembly set up to investigate allegation of diversion of funds from Local Government/SURE-P accounts to ALGON account. The House said the dissolution shall be in line with the provision of Section 81A (b) of the Local Government Law as amended.
The committee had stated in its report that it observed several violations of section 7A and 7B of the Joint Local Government Account Allocation Committee Law (CAP 69) of Katsina State as amended and Regulation No. 713 of Financial Regulation No 72 Vol. 96 of 2009. According to it, the said law stipulates that personal money shall in no circumstance be paid into a government bank account nor shall any public money be paid into a private account.
Hope in the offing
Despite the position of the state governments, hope is not yet lost on autonomy for the councils given the assurance by President Muhammadu Buhari, during his inauguration on May 29, to ensure that the three arms of government act constitutionally to serve the country optimally and avoid the confusion bedevilling governance.
The President said: “Elsewhere, relations between Abuja and the states have to be clarified if we are to serve the country better. Constitutionally, there are limits to powers of each of the three tiers of government but that should not mean the Federal Government should fold its arms and close its eyes to what is going on in the states and local governments.
Not least the operations of the Local Government Joint Account. “While the Federal Government cannot interfere in the details of its operations, it will ensure that the gross corruption at the local level is checked. As far as the constitution allows me, I will try to ensure that there is responsible and accountable governance at all levels of government in the country.
For I will not have kept my own trust with the Nigerian people if I allow others abuse theirs under my watch.” No doubt, the sacking of the caretaker committees and their replacement with the same illegal entities is meant to pave the way for the new governors and their cronies and proxies to continue the looting spree, but Nigerians cannot wait to see how the contradictions in the constitution, which have aided the diversion of funds meant for the councils would be tackled by the Buhari administration.
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