THE demand for responsible and accountable government in our country has been understandably pronounced since the advent of the fourth republic. Controversies on the relationship of the third tier of government to the centre came to the foreground in crisis between the Lagos State Government and the Federal Government when the latter's local government statutory allocation was withheld by the Federal Government because of the creation of more local government areas. Although the Supreme Court ruled that the state can create local councils, the caveat was added that it would need the approval of the National Assembly before becoming legal creations in accordance with Section 8(5) of the 1999 Constitution as amended. As a result, most states that created local governments had to rechristen them as Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) to avoid conflict with the basic law. Of course, the autonomy of the local governments was ab initio in doubt, since they are under the superintendence of the state Houses of Assembly and the state executive. The implication has been that local governments are starved of funds due to them statutorily from the federation account. This is made possible mainly because the governors control the 'state joint local government account' provided for under section 162(6). Consequently, this has created a seedy inter-governmental relationship between the state and local governments.Lately, the National Assembly seemed poised to address the constitutional anomaly when it entertained a bill sponsored by Honourable Uche Ekwunife seeking the amendment of Sections 7 and 162 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, which guarantee a system of democratically elected local governments in the country 'to provide for independence and financial autonomy of local government councils in Nigeria.' The arguments for the proposed bill are diverse and aimed at restoring autonomy to the third tier so that the localism principle can be truly realised. Certainly the practice in which local governments prostrate before state executives to access fund is unhealthy in a democracy, and reduces local governments into mere local administrations. Also, over 60 percent of local government funds are used by state governments leaving the latter castrated and unable to deliver services at the grassroots. As a result of this malpractice, local governments merely pay staff salaries at the end of every month without rendering any tangible services to the people. The debate around the bill is ambitious and could be totalising if the procedures for the creation of local governments are equally amended.The bill, therefore, deserves support, and it should be goaded on by all concerned in order to remove once and for all the lingering obstacle to efficient service delivery at the local level. The autonomy question was at the centre of the local government reform of 1976 even though the military ran them as local administrations. But today, the states have strangulated local government authorities the more such that they now play nominal role and the people have continued to call into question their relevance in the governance process of the country. The dictates of good governance inbuilt in service delivery and accountability to the people require autonomous local governments and the bill should aim to realise this principle.Part of the logic of the iron grip of state executives over local government councils is the fact that they have control over the state electoral commissions, which currently lack independence and therefore influence electoral process to suit the whims and caprices of the executives. Thus, the leadership of local governments is externally subservient to state executives. One could hardly point to a state in the country where the opposition controls a quarter of the local government leadership. Conduct of local government elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as recommended by the Justice Uwais Committee on Electoral Reform is something to revisit in addressing the autonomy question.However, we should not miss out the competing views of federalism in the subject as well as the need to remedy the contradictory dynamics of the federal practice in the country. There is a general opinion that Nigerian federalism is skewed and that the arbitrary and lopsided creations of the local governments across the country exemplify the contradictions. The reality had encouraged many states to create local councils without the corresponding financial powers and which subsequently led to their conversion to LCDAs. The question that naturally arises is whether to uphold and reinforce the skewed federalism as it is today or to remedy it by making local councils the creation of federating states and yet provide for their financial autonomy within such a scheme. This is a question the National Assembly must answer in its present exercise. We would rather advocate correcting the contradictions and begin to stand the Nigerian federalism on its legs than perpetuating the age long contradiction of the system. Amending these distortions can make local governments true centres for participatory democracy.
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