Constitutional ambiguities bane of Local Council administration in Nigeria

By FUNSO OMODELEOLA

“THIS Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on the authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed, nor shall any persons or group of persons take control of the Government of Nigeria or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.

“If any other law is inconsistent with the provisions of this Constitution, this Constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void. There shall be 768 Local Government Areas in Nigeria as shown in the second column of Part I of the First Schedule to this Constitution and six area councils as shown in Part II of that Schedule.”

This constitutional provision is serially breached by State Governors in Nigeria and they continue to run local councils as an administrative subdivides of the state appointing caretaker committees, sole administrators in flagrant abuse of the provisions of the constitution as detailed above.

National Daily investigation showed that in spite of the dwindling revenue, the thirty-six states of the country and Abuja shared N113.5bn in January. Likewise the 774 local governments shared N85.4 bn. Akwa-Ibom State had the largest share of N10.7bn followed by Delta State with 7.3bn and Osun State with N255.2m.

On the allocation to local governments, Lagos State scored the highest with N5.4bn followed by Kano State with N4.7bn while Bayelsa State had the least with N972m. Obio/Akpor local government in Rivers state had the largest share with 156.6million naira. None of the local government in the Federation received less than 60million naira in January.

The question one should ask is how come none of the local governments is unable to implement capital projects in spite of the money they collect. The truth is that governors of the 36 states have hijacked the funds of the local and by so doing have crippled the local government system in the country.

Unfortunately, some ambiguities in the constitution allowed them to get away with it. Section 7(1) states that ”The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the government of every state shall subject to section 8 of this constitution, ensure their existence under a Law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and function of such councils”.

Yet, section 7(6a) submits that “the National Assembly shall make provisions for statutory allocation of public revenue to Local Government councils in the federation.
But the confusion is extended further by section 7(6b) which states that” the House of Assembly of a state shall make provisions for statutory allocation of public revenue to local government councils within the state”.

This confusion also resurfaced in section 162(6) where it established the State Joint Local Government Account for the Purpose of payment of “all allocations to the Local Government councils of the State from the Federal account and from the Government of the State”.

ALSO SEE: Federal, state, local governments share N559bn

In Section 162(7) it directs State Government to pay Local Government councils its total revenue on the terms prescribed by the National Assembly. At the same time it gives the same power and functions to the State House of Assembly in section 162(8). Further, section 8 (subsections 5 and 6) saddles the National Assembly with some functions before creation of a local government can become legal.

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The implication of all the identified contradictions and ambiguities is that it is very difficult to locate constitutionally the locus of power on local government creation. That is the tragic situation we are now.

Comrade Ibrahim Khaleel Adk, National President, Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) “It is sad to note that with the level of corrosive abuses and serial violation on the security of Local Government system by the 3rd republic politician in Nigeria, Local Government is fast sliding back into the events after the military takeover of 1966 and before the creation of states”.

In 1976, the sub-committee on the economy, finance and division of power of the constitution drafting committee headed by Dr. Pius Okigbo had made the following recommendations.

The Federal Government shall, each year, make provision for allocation of funds Local Governments, such funds shall be passed to State Governments for their Local Governments. It is further recommended that in the Constitution of the Stats provision be made to make it Obligatory that any monies allocated by the Federal Government to the Local Government in the State shall be passed on by the State Government to the Local Authority.

The State Government shall set up a Revenue Allocation Committee analogous to that of the Federal Fiscal Review Commission; the State Government shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that the Local Government within its area has adequate funds to discharge the duties and responsibilities assigned to it under this Constitution.

National Daily findings has revealed that in most States of the federation the governors have adopted Joint Venture platforms to cripple local council administrations; these joint ventures subsume local government functions such as Primary Education, Waste Management, Signage Management, Primary Health Provision, Immunization, Inner City road construction, Market and Motor Park Administration, Land Use Charge Collection to mention a few.

The Governors rely on the State House of Assemblies to enact laws that compel Local Councils to go into these partnerships which there in turn give the states the right to deduct council allocations from source. Abubakar Malami (SAN)