By Michael Nnebife
Reactions have not yet stopped trailing the Supreme Court Judgement, granting financial autonomy to Local Government Areas in Nigeria.
Some prominent individuals in Anambra State who include a Professor of Political Science, at Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam, Obiajulu Obikeze; and the President, National Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, Anambra State Chapter, Comrade Chikweli Adigwe, spoke on the judgement recently, in Awka the state capital.
Prof Obikeze said, ‘The judgement by the Supreme Court is a judgement many Nigerians had been waiting for since 1999.
‘The Local Government System has become moribund and has been in comatose, a situation whereby their powers, duties and everything about them have been hijacked by the state governors.
‘This being the case, the desired intention of the Local Government System has become almost crumbled, a situation whereby many state governments began to introduce the transitional committee chairmen model of caretaker committee.
‘I didn’t know that the Supreme Court would have the courage to do that. Initially, I thought that it was a constitutional matter which would’ve involved amendment of the constitution, but because the Supreme Court have said it, and being the final court of Nigeria, we all have to embrace it.
‘So, we’re all happy getting to this point that Supreme Court has said the autonomy of local governments should be restored,’ Prof Obikeze said, urging the state governments to be benevolent and kind enough to start conducting free, fair and transparent elections, where every member of the local government areas should be qualified to contest and be voted for.
The Political Science teacher blamed the problem of the Local Government System on financial abuse by the local government chairmen, and later the state governors.
‘What the governors were doing was what the local government chairmen were doing; they get the money of the local government, share it among themselves, and abandon the real essence of the Local Government System, which is to bring about grassroots development.
‘But we believe and hope that this time around, people will strive, at least, to hold them accountable to whatever thing they receive from the central government,’ Prof Obikeze said.
He advised the state governors to be kind enough to allow the Local Government System to stay, urging them to begin to start trying to see how to adjust.
For his part, the President, Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, Anambra State Chapter, Comrade Chikwelu Adigwe, said Nigeria’s Apex Court Judgement on the local government autonomy was not supposed to be celebrated because the judgement was what Nigeria, as a democratic country should uncompromisingly practice.
Comrade Adigwe wondered why, after a president of the country conducted elections for the state governors, the governors failed to obligatorily do the same for the local governments.
The NULGE President said, ‘The issue at stake here is that we are not supposed to celebrate the judgement because it’s something every democratic governor should practice in his or her state.
‘We’re talking about three tiers of government that are independent of each other,’ the labour leader said, and argued, ‘Even the creation of the Joint Allocation and Account Committee, JAAC, was established as a distribution committee, but not as a place where to determine how local government funds should be run.
‘There’s what’s call a joint revenue window owned by the state and local governments; whatever that has been gotten from there at the end of the month should be remitted to JAAC, and from the JAAC, it’ll be sent direct to the local government account.
‘But this isn’t practicable in Nigeria as most of the state governors are abusing it.
‘They use Joint Allocation Account to siphon local government funds, and mismanage the affairs of the local government,’ he said.
According to him, ‘The problem of Nigeria regarding insecurity had a link with the redundancy of the local system.
‘This is because there are peculiarities in security administrations of the local governments.
‘For example, we can’t compare the security situation in Ihiala, Anambra State, with those of Nnewi and Awka,’ Comrade Adigwe noted, stating, however, that at the state level, the governors set up security architecture that would be sent to the local government level to take care of security the situation in that level.
This, he said, should be stopped to allow democratically elected local government chairmen handle security situations at the local government level based on the grassroots peculiarities.
The Anambra NULGE boss therefore upheld the judgement of the Apex Court, expressing the hope for massive development at the grassroots level as the local government funds would be used to work for the grassroots people.
‘I can tell you that practically in Anambra State, since 2002 till date, there’s has been no employment in the Local Government System and yet workers are retiring and dying without replacement.
‘We don’t have clerks, messengers, security, and a lot of things in the local government system.
‘The system, even the structure itself, is crumbling and falling apart. But with this judgement and its implementation, I must assure you that there must be accountability and transparency among the chairmen that’ll emerge tomorrow as democratically elected local government chairmen,’ Comrade Adigwe said.
He urged that the Independent National Electoral Commission be allowed to conduct elections at the local government level, while the issue of local government legislation should be shifted down to the councilors.
‘The situation whereby the State Houses of Assembly determine how the local government should be run is an aberration,’ he said.
