THERE are many issues begging for attention from  commentators like me. The issues are just too many. In our country, it is “one day, one trouble.” You can even say one hour or minute, one trouble. As I write, I can almost swear that another issue of critical importance has been incubated and is already hatching.

For the moment, however, the issues are around fuel energy (read that as removal of subsidy and consequential impact on prices of goods and services, especially food), removal of subsidy on electricity, talks on the new national minimum wage, which was hobbled on Wednesday as Labour walked out of the talks, and of course, insecurity, which has acquired perennial status, as terrorists, kidnappers, and other felons continue to wreak havoc on the citizenry without let or hindrance by seemingly overwhelmed security services.

Today, however, I opt to focus this column on the push by the Senate for autonomy of local governments. At plenary on Wednesday, the Red Chamber of the National Assembly accused state governors of having killed local governments.

Deputy Senate President, Jibrin Barau, who presided at plenary, was quoted as saying: “Local governments are dead in Nigeria. Governors misappropriate local government funds. They force local government chairmen to sign off cheques and give them meagre amounts as running costs. Some governors are different and we thank them for doing the right thing.”

I am surprised and at the same time pleased that the issue of local government autonomy has grabbed the Senate’s attention. The present Senate, like previous ones, is full of former governors, many of whom helped perfect the odoriferous system that has emasculated local governments and reduced their secretariats to motor parks where rules that govern formal institutions have taken flight. Truth is, the way things are right now in many states, no local government can deliver any meaningful service to the people, because that is the way the governors want them to be. 

But it has not always been like this for the local governments, which, by the provisions of the 1999 Constitution, is a full-fledged tier of government, the third, after the federal and state governments. Before and after independence, local governments functioned. We had primary and post-primary schools established and funded well by local governments. There was even the Native Authority Police at the grassroots. Before 1976, they were called District Councils, whose chief executive was the District Officer, popularly called D.O. Then, the meddlesome military, after jackbooting their way into the political realm in 1966, decided to reform the local government system, and empanelled a commission to carry out the task. The commission on reforms of the local government system was headed by the Baraden Sokoto at the time, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki, who will later become the 18th Sultan of Sokoto. The commission later became popularly known as the Dasuki Commission.

The restructuring of local governments followed implementation of the commission’s recommendations, and from 1976 to 1999, local governments delivered on their mandates. In many parts of the country, they built schools, water-works, and roads. Indeed, local governments served as an institution of manpower development for higher political office, as many local government chairmen who “performed” went higher to get elected as governors. When the retreating military gave us the 1999 Constitution, one of the poisoned chalices in it was the provisions in Section 162, which specified how money shall be shared in the Distributable Pool Account. Section 162(6) states: “Each State shall maintain a special account to be called “State Joint Local Government Account” into which shall be paid all allocations to the Local Government Councils of the State from the Federation Account and from the Government of the State.” This clause created the woes of the local government system as state governors used all kinds of sakamanje under this clause to deny local governments their full allocations. They would all deny this, and vigorously too, of course.

But what is glaring is that all politicians that have been governors since 1999 are guilty of this, with the exception of some very few of them. The incumbent president was governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007. The vice-president was governor of Borno State from 2011 to 2019. The incumbent Senate President, whose colleagues are now crying wolf on behalf of the local governments, was governor of Akwa Ibom State from 2007 to 2015. Before then, he was Commissioner for Local Government Affairs in the administration of his predecessor.

Can these people in high places absolve themselves of complicity in the fate that have befallen local governments? My point is that successive classes of governors from 1999 to date are jointly and severally responsible for the sorry state of local governments in our country. Their actions run contrary to the spirit of the federalism they all shout about. I really wonder: What would have become of our country if a president decided to treat the states the way governors have treated local governments? Would our country not have gone up in flames? Why then would governors continue to treat local governments like minor departments in their offices? Let local governments breathe, please!