Onuora Benedict Nweke
Through the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), newly created out of the Economic Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), the Federal Government has set June 1st, 2019 for the commencement of a new financial regime to now regulate the relationship between the states and the local government councils. This is intended to supposedly liberate the local government council funds, which hitherto have been under the control of the state governors.
Over the years, Nigeria watched helplessly as this supposed third tier of government was muzzled and squeezed into the state of inertia, by the various state executives. Instead of facilitating rural development, the local government system has become moribund, non-functional, and ineffectual; it has lost its glory as a platform for training future leaders of the country; rather, has become a nest for breeding all manner of people enjoying state governments’ patronage, doing nothing except helping to retire local government funds expended at the detriment and expense of the grassroots people.
The local government headquarters become decorations and sad reminders to the people of the extent of their exploitation, impoverishment and neglect by pretenders in government. Deprivations and denials of their monthly allocations become statutory evidenced in the near complete absence of any form of developmental programmes or projects, in the rural areas.
The unfortunate implications of the above relationship are that: the local government councils lack the capacity to discharge their constitutional responsibilities; their bosses become stooges and therefore pliable to the manipulations of state governors; the local councils through the local government/state joint account become platforms for the systematic fraud characterizing the financial relationship between states and the local governments. The joint account platform becomes the symbolic representation of the betrayal of the hopes and aspiration of the people at the grassroots. Section 161 (6) (8) of the 1999 Nigerian constitution creates the “state joint local government account into which shall be paid allocations to the local government councils of the state from the government of the state.” Through this constitutional provision, the state governments regard the local government funds as their possessions. The joint accounts therefore become holes in which local governments are trapped, from where the chairmen are given hand-outs by state governors, as the lopsidedness of its operation tilts heavily and unfortunately against the local government system.
Nevertheless, the present intervention by the creation of Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has become a saving grace; hoping to breathe fresh air and a new lease of life into the hitherto lifeless local government system. Hopes of the teeming Nigerian rural population are being restored. The pretensions that the local government leaders are bereft of ideas and are incapable of executing quality projects that are relevant to the people and positively impactful on the grassroots people, no longer matters.
Nigerians expect reinvigorated and rapid developmental strides at the local government level all over Nigeria. The dilapidated infrastructure at the local levels; the collapsing primary school system; the almost impassable rural roads; the asphyxiated health sector, are all expectant of revampment, rehabilitation, refurbishment, rejuvenation and all that. Local government scholarships and bursary awards for students at the tertiary levels will be reactivated and reinstituted. Life will find abode in our local government headquarters once again. These are a few of the expectations from the supposed restoration of the financial local government autonomy. Nigerians are already heaving a sigh of relief and thanking God and the Federal Government for this life-injecting policy – one of the most significant decisions and achievements of the present political dispensation.
Nevertheless, the financial autonomy being canvassed by this new financial regime has challenges and obstacles that might militate against its smooth actualization. In the first place, the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) believes that primary education under a local government control is dangerous. This is a threat to the policy. The fear is palpable that a repetition of what transpired with a similar policy in the past is inevitable. Local government bosses seized and used salaries of teachers for other things and owed teacher’s salaries for several months; and needed state government’s interventions for these salaries to be paid eventually.
Another big hurdle expected to act as a wedge towards full and smooth implementation of this new regulation is the law empowering the State Electoral Commissions to conduct elections into the local government council areas. From experiences, state executives simply anoint the council bosses within their states and such local governments Chairmen become lackeys and stooges who do only the biddings of their masters. Implementation of the new financial regime becomes a mirage under the circumstance. Stories are already making the rounds that some governors are obtaining signatures of local government chairmen under them to sign and sabotage the process.
In resolving these problems, though there is a lead on the maximum amount of money expendable in a day by the council bosses, there are some strong policy directions that are inevitable if this policy must succeed. The directive that no more than five hundred thousand naira (N500,000=) only must be withdrawn from the local government account per day; and all payments must involve cheques through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), are good. But these must be backed up by law; this invariably must necessitate the amendment of certain relevant sections of the Nigerian constitution. They include sections on the state/local government joint account law and that empowering the states’ electoral commission to conduct elections into the local councils.
Meddlesomeness on the part of the governors and complicity of the council bosses in shortchanging the people at the grassroots should not be allowed to continue. In fact, this act of betrayal should be made a constitutional matter, and somewhat criminalized. The laws conferring powers on local governments to oversee the primary school system must be reformed so that teachers’ salaries are protected from the vagaries of the council leaders, who sometimes slide into extravagant spending to the point of messing with money set aside for salaries.
The Federal Government should constitute monitoring committees of tested men and women of honour and integrity, to monitor and report regularly the progress on the implementation of this policy to appropriate sectors of federal government. The state governors through state instruments should play supervisory roles to ensure that chairmen discharge their assigned duties, but governors should never be involved in the disbursement or use of the fund.
Also, the media groups, churches, civil rights organizations, advocacy groups, students unions and other stakeholders within the local government areas should form formidable consciousness-raising and monitoring groups to act as watch-dogs; to ensure that state governments do not interfere in the utilization of local government funds, and also check excesses on the part of local government bosses.
Dr. Nweke writes from Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu Alike, Ikwo