Historically, Nigeria is a country composed of ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse peoples who were arbitrarily lumped together by British colonialists in one country for their own interests alone and without bothering a hue about the future consequences to the peace and amity of the peoples so crudely brought together in such an uneasy union.
The first step in this marriage of convenience was taken in 1914 when the Northern and Southern protectorates were amalgamated into one country and named Nigeria. It was at this point that the real work of making a country out of the ethnically and culturally diverse peoples began.
The British Colonialists first tried to govern the new multi-ethnic country through a unitary system which to them was more economical. Hence the Clifford’s Richard’s and McPherson’s constitutions of 1922, 1946 and 1952 respectively were essentially unitary.
But the British soon realised they needed to do a yeoman’s job if they truly wanted to make a country out of the disparate peoples of the merged territories. And so in 1954, the Oliver Lytletton’s constitution formally made Nigeria a federation of three regions- Northern, Eastern and Western regions.
All the constitutional conferences held in Nigeria and the United Kingdom after 1954 were only meant to fine-tune the federal structure already in place. The final decision to go federal itself came after a long and protracted debate between the unitarists and the federalists.
It was a long drawn battle between the two groups of nationalists which the federalists eventually won. But for the corruption of power by those who wielded the central power in the First Republic which eventually led to the downfall of that regime, there is no gainsaying the fact that the carefully negotiated federal structure bequeathed to us by our nationalist forebears would have served us much better than what we have today.
The landmark economic achievements of that period coupled with the competitive spirit of the regions testified to this.
The collapse of the First Republic and the emergence of the military in politics had been the main source of our present national dilemma. With neither training in politics and governance whatsoever, nor the right temperament for the skillful negotiations needed for nation-building, and surrounded by advisers who could not see beyond personal or ethnic advantages, the soldiers in power simply went about partitioning Nigeria into states without any pattern or principle and also saddling the country with constitutions that are neither well thought through nor even suitable.
One out of many absurdities that the military and their advisers out of selfish and ethnic interests inflicted on this country is the creation of local governments centrally and enshrining such arbitrary creations in the national constitution. The implication of this in a supposed federation is grave.
Apart from deploying this constitutional contrivance to corner an inequitable chunk of national resources to a particular section of the country, it is also a clever ploy to continue to administer a federation as a unitary state.
In connection with inequitable sharing of resources, one notorious example can be used for illustration. Lagos and Kano states as at the time of this LG creation had approximately equal population, but while Kano state was gifted 43 LGs, Lagos was given only 20 LGs meaning that Lagos would have less than half of Kano’s LG revenue share from the national treasury.
In addition to this national resources sharing outrage is the fact that the freedom of the federating states to administer themselves the way they deem fit, an inalienable right of every component state of a federation, was taken away by the entrenchment of the local governments in the constitution.
The absurdity of this strange structural characteristics of the Nigerian federation was brought home during the Obasanjo Presidency. Lagos State with a population of about twenty million thought it was expedient for purposes of effective and efficient governance to create more local government areas in Lagos and it did so legitimately.
But for exercising this legitimate right, the military- turned civilian President at the time arbitrarily and illegally seized the Lagos State’s local government revenue allocations for more than two years. It was the succeeding President that eventually paid the money to Lagos State. What an affront to the age- old principle of federalism!
With such well known past occurrences, one would naturally have thought that most Nigerians would have seen through the smoke screen of local government creation to deform the Nigerian federation for selfish political calculations.
Instead of the states clamouring with one voice for the immediate removal of the local government item from the constitution, the new distraction now is the clamour for what they term local government autonomy.
One is really at a loss as to what is meant by this. Are they suggesting that through the so called autonomy, the local governments should now be completely independent of their respective states?
If they now become financially autonomous as being agitated, who now controls them, the states or the federal authorities? Or the LGs would no longer require control or supervision by anyone?
With the current Nigerian proclivity to corrupt practices, it will amount to finding ”chop for the boys” if the LGs remain what they currently are and revenue allocations dispatched to them monthly without any supervision.
The Federal Government itself cannot convince anyone that it can directly monitor and supervise allocations to the LGs given the enormity of the current federal responsibilities some of which even ought to be constitutionally reassigned to the states for efficiency and effectiveness.
Of course, it must be realised that those who conceived this idea of financially autonomous local government funded from Abuja did so out of impure motives. The idea was not for the good of the people of Nigeria. It is a deception to obtain from the backdoor what is unavailable through the right process.
This idea of local government autonomy is a misnomer in a federal state like ours and must be totally rejected.
Nigeria is a federation of thirty six states and a federal capital territory with both the federal and the states exercising their constitutionally assigned roles. Those in control of the federal power must not be allowed to undercut the states’ jurisdiction through the bogus idea of local government autonomy.
Indeed measures must be quickly taken to see that Nigeria is reverted back to its natural federation so that the highly endowed nation can blossom politically, socially and economically to the prosperity and happiness of the Nigerian people.
- The author could be reached through his telephone number: +234 806 662 1203.
