Successive administrations in Nigeria have made various attempts
to create governance structure that allows for pursuing decentralized and
representative administration through different levels of government, albeit
with differing degrees of success. These efforts are exemplified in the use of
regional Authorities, native and district and the introduction of parliamentary
system of governance with the independent constitution then. Similarly, the
creation of state that rose from an initial twelve to present thirty six, as
well as the creation of three hundred local government areas in 1976, which
progressively rose to seven hundred and seventy four were also aimed at
creating an administrative environment for grass roots development through
decentralization.
The first entry point here
is that the 1999 constitution recognizes the principle of fiscal federalism
meant to guarantee effective decentralization. Thus the constitution implicitly
recognizes the need for fiscal, administration and political decentralization
in the management of effective policies at the grass-root. Experience has it
that with the application of this constitutional provisions its turns our more
difficult in the decentralization of administrative powers during the era of
military and this democracy where in so many instances, it has succeeded in
whittling down the so many administrative policies that is primarily meant for
them to function with. Failure of the present constitution to articulate clear
delegation of authority between the states and local government where it allow
states to raise shoulder high over the local government especially in decision
making process, the ambiguity in the responsibility for creation of local
governments which remains incoherent and its technical substitute as given in
the fourth schedule of the constitution. The challenges relating to the
equitable allocation of federal revenues amongst the three tiers of government
are abound. With the advent of this present democratic dispensation in 1999, the
issue became front burner as state government begin to enjoy high levels of
autonomy in number of areas, where same is not being reproduced at the local
government levels, where
pathetically, remains
subservient to state and begging the question of why should this be, especially
in a federating unit’’.
The constitutional
ambiguity that stands in the middle of delineating areas of responsibility between
states and local government in the concurrent list remain subjective in nature,
where it was silent on the clarity of roles in governing urban centre’s, and
where continual encroachment of state governments on responsibilities of local
governments makes it more inordinate due to state control and eventually making
it more to rest on one side than the other.
For instance, the issue of fiscal constrain, relating to
administrative and political autonomy, the gory issues of urban agglomeration
into different local government with out consideration for effective
administration, relating to absence of city wide structure for urban
governance. Is a disservice to the inhabitants and has still remained so. This
has made those local councils unable to operate within their jurisdiction
especially when it comes to generating found internally, consequently, these
has made them also to be over
dependent on federal allocation which ordinarily, their revenue would have
boost their think tank of having more to execute instead of how to execute.
The over bearing challenge of capacity constraint with dependence
on the federal and state government for policy initiatives and program me has
made the people at the grass root not to have confidence in their leadership capabilities anymore, even
those political office holders wouldn’t have performed any miracle either. Even
the states in which those local governments belong are some times not making it
fair to them with the manipulation of the revenue allocation formula process
and also in abeyance of where the constitution stipulates that the state should
contribute ten percent of their internally generated revenue to their local
government from individual states and not the one t we seeing at present where
the imposition of extra budgetary expenditure on the local government by
states. Indeed, what should have been instead, is where political , economic
and administrative authority would legally reside with the lowest tier of
government, these would indeed help individuals and communities to have voice
in defining development priority of their areas and improving activities and
initiatives by existing governance institutions by the citizenry in other to
ensure sustainable development.
Local government areas are indeed where we find more people with
varying degree of vulnerability in different aspect of lives challenges and the
need for more attention is abound. If going by this, we tend not to understand
some implication that has been coming with it then one is tempted to say democracy, governance and
leadership is still at infancy in Nigeria where we also tend not to understand
what we should do with leadership that is in dire need to give this changes
that we certainly needs. Our democracy is a platform of where the voice of the
people is allowed in agitation, and where those that are in position to lead us
use and bring good governance in requirement and in demand such as this., to
ensure that credible people, capable of performing at all level are acceptable to the electorate at the grass-root and are chosen as representatives of the people thus the need to attract quality assurance of dynamic and competent
leader to guide development at the local level which can be paramount to good
local government. As it appears, in the ongoing debate at the national
assembly, if there must be autonomy of the local government councils, there is
the need to stream line section 7 [6] a and b which empowers the national and
state assemblies to make provision for statutory allocation of public revenue
to local government; section 7 [6] a and b even though should be retained, is
equally of worthy note to make another provision to ensure minimum control in
accessing their resource.
Section 8 [3] empowers the
states house of assemblies to create new local councils, provision should be
added instead, stating the criteria that will guide its creation and this
should be applied nationally and give room for periodic review, also to
discourage one state having edge over another. The on going debate as seen in the senate chamber approving its autonomy should not be cut short
by other relevant bodies that stand to make it a reality, the long over due
process should be seen as matter of urgency since it has more to do with
grass-root where all of us originated from. This is the time to give the grassroots people what is due to them for the
reason of equity and fairness, and this is saying it the way it is
No comments:
Post a Comment