By Adekunle Adekoya

I WAS thrown off my feet earlier in the week when a former Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General in Oyo State, Mutalubi  Adebayo, faulted the clamour for local government autonomy by many sections of the Nigerian polity, adding that it simply shows that the people do not understand the concept of federalism.

Adebayo spoke while answering questions on a live radio programme monitored in Ibadan. Indeed, the lawyer averred that in Nigeria, local governments were not designed to function the way many Nigerians wanted them to. Let me quote him: “Federal or national government is the making of the component states or units in the federation that agreed to come together to form a government at the centre. There are just two tiers of government in any federalism, and they are just the national, central, or federal government that they (all the component units or states) agree to create or form, and the state governments.

“Local governments are not a tier of government in any federalism, but they are an integral part of the state government, which has further subdivided itself into smaller units known as local governments for state administrative purposes. You see, the truth is that state governments are empowered to create local governments as they wish, and local governments are answerable to the State governments. The State House of Assembly is expected to supervise the activities of local governments. So, in a federal system, there is no such thing as local government autonomy, as many Nigerians demand. Listing local government areas in the constitution is very wrong and an aberration.”

He did not stop there, he added what I have decided to call a coup de grâce for local governments: “A governor may give what is due to local governments in part or in full as he pleases. That is the spirit of federalism. That is why, most times, we only appeal to these governors to at least allow the local governments to operate freely and not as a matter of obligation.”

With thinking like this, coming from a lawyer who was a former state attorney general, the Nigerian state is imperiled. I challenge Adebayo to research into how local governments functioned before 1999, when we returned to democratic civil rule. It should interest him to discover that one of the reasons military rule was easily endured by Nigerians was because the soldiers, as dictatorial as they were, allowed local governments to function.

In fact, they reformed local government administration; the Dasuki Commission was appointed in 1976 to achieve this and make them more responsive in terms of service delivery. Between 1976 and 1999, local governments built roads (Trunk C roads), waterworks, health centres and other such infrastructure.

But what has happened since 1999? Potentates of sub-national governments cleverly exploited a constitutional provision for a joint state and local government account to exert political control. While this has been achieved, it has come at the cost of service delivery by the local governments, who suddenly found themselves begging for funds that are theirs by right. Another great cost that Nigerians are bearing is that of leadership development at the grassroots level. Now, governors just choose who will succeed them, almost capriciously.

Worse, the call for true federalism has devolved into a Jekyll and Hyde syndrome that has hampered and stunted our country’s development. If one of the causes of stunted development is the concentration of too many powers at the centre, how can we nurture same at the state level with the kind of fatuous adumbration coming from Adebayo? Didn’t the constitution specify a three-tier federal system? Didn’t the constitution list local governments? If it did, why would anybody machinate them into redundancy?

Has Adebayo forgotten President Buhari’s efforts to use executive orders to ensure that local governments received direct allocations? What did he make of that? We copied our presidential system of government from the United States. There, they have federal, state, and county governments. They all follow their respective constitutions and do not impose restrictions on one another. Counties deliver service, so also state governments and the federal. In law enforcement, there are city police departments and sheriffs in the counties. They all work together with their federal police, the FBI.

More galling is the comment above that a governor may give to a local government whatever he or she pleases. Is it the governor’s money, or an allocation specified by law? What would have happened if a president decided to give what he liked to a state? I have long held the belief that the followership is as much a part of the Nigerian problem as the leadership. If a governor is getting advice of this nature from his aides in charge of education, justice, health, etc., Nigeria would have long gone back to the Stone Age. Let us change. 

Let us be forward-looking. We don’t have to do things that will favour us or advance our interests to the detriment of the vast majority. Many of our leaders may mean well, but we get shortchanged when they succumb to the sophistry of pernicious advice. Time now to stop all these; the world is leaving us behind!