CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS: CASUALTIES BEFORE THE BATTLE

DA DA IDO

DITV/ALHERI RADIO, KADUNA

NEWS ANALYSIS/COMMENTARY

11^TH November, 2011

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS: CASUALTIES BEFORE THE BATTLE

          A major casualty has been registered, long before hostilities around the proposed constitutional amendments commence. This casualty is the autonomy of Local Government Councils, and it is doubtful if all parties involved will risk losing much ground over it. Even though it ought to be a key issue in any serious review of the Constitution, it is likely to be jettisoned and sacrificed in the horse-trading which will involve the federal and state governments and legislatures. It will be sacrificed to please State Governors; and because tragically, Nigerians are likely to leave the issue of constitutional amendments almost entirely for the President, Governors and legislators to decide. Yet, no issue deserves to have Nigerians rally around it than the need to free Local Governments from the clutches of State Governments.

          From the moment the federal government signalled its intention to include the State-Local Government Joint Account and the scrapping of State Independent Electoral Commissions (S.I.E.Cs) among issues for the planned review of the Constitution, it became clear from the reaction of State Governors that they will resist any reform in this area; and they will succeed. The position of State Governors on the place of Local Governments has been well known, since the present constitution came into force. It is also a widely recognised fact that a number of unsuccessful efforts have been made in the past to remove the stranglehold on Local Governments which the Constitution’s section 7 gives State Governments.  It has been long noted that a major contradiction exists between what the Constitution intends in providing for an elected third tier of government with much wider autonomy, and the provision of Section 7 which ties the operations and utility of the local government entirely to the whims of the state government.

     The constitution provides for elected Local Government Chairmen and Council, and by implication, gives them the mandates to govern and be accountable to the people who elected them. Yet it also gives State Governors and legislature powers to regulate their structure, composition, finance and functions.  It gives State Governors and legislators powers to determine their tenure and how they spend their resources. The State-Local Government Joint Account represents a vote of no confidence in the capacity of elected people to expend resources and be accountable for them. A constitution which insists that the Local Government leadership must be democratically elected turns around to make it wholly subordinate to another elected body of people; that is, State Governors and State Legislators. And since State Governors have virtually pocketed their legislators since 1999, in effect Local Governments have become mere appendages of State Governments. Nowhere is the impotence of Local governments more evident than in the manner State Governments spend the funds of local governments through the Joint Account. Yet State Governments are not accountable to citizens for the effectiveness or otherwise of Local Government Councils. Even Chairmen and Councillors elected on party platforms different from those of Governors have to answer directly to Governors, and not to the people who elected them. In real terms, the current operation of the Local Government system has obliterated all distinctions between State and Local Governments. This has denied Nigerians the opportunity to have three viable tiers of government, which, if operational as intended, will make major impact on the lives of citizens.

          It is not going to be easy to free Local Governments from the suffocating control of State Governments. As things stand, the revenue allocation formula gives the federal government 52%, states 26% and local governments 22%. The effect of the total control of local government finances by States is that they combine their allocations with those of local governments, which means that they effectively receive 48% of all revenues. They use or abuse the funds as they wish, because the constitution denies Local Governments the capacity to spend what they receive as they wish.

          In terms of the development of our democratic traditions, nothing can be more destructive than the conversion of an entire tier of government into the property of another. Leaders cannot emerge from the grassroots through the local government system to higher levels of governance, because their careers are arrested by the manner local governments are held hostage by State Governors. People who contest and win elections are made powerless, even though they have huge responsibilities. Since they cannot spend their own resources without grovelling to Governors, they become extensions of governors. The little that is allowed for local governments to spend is merely consumed by the leaders; and they merely point accusing fingers at Governors who will not let them operate to meet aspirations of their people.

          But a more damaging assault on the democratic process is the continued existence of State Independent Electoral Commissions (S.I.E.Cs). When the Constitution made provision for State Electoral Commissions to conduct local government elections, the idea was to free INEC of this burden, and encourage the growth and development of the democratic culture by devolving capacities for conducting elections to lower organs. The idea is a good one, but it has been turned into the worst nightmare for Nigeria’s democracy. Governors have turned S.I.E.Cs, into government departments which routinely return at least 95% of all elective positions at Local government levels to the ruling party. Democracy can never grow and develop if the level which is most intimately involved with communities is perverted and made into a mere rubber stamp of Governors. The record of S.I.E.Cs so far suggests that the only thing to do with them is to scrap them, and allow INEC to conduct all elections; or set up election adhoc committees in all states to conduct elections into local government councils when they are due. INEC itself is far from perfect, but the abuse of S.I.E.Cs by Governors is so serious that any option is better than leaving the S.I.E.Cs at their mercies.

          There are very good reasons why the constitutional review should seek to free local governments from the control of State Governments and the scrapping of State Electoral Commissions. But Governors will use their influence over the President, the national assembly and in particular state assemblies to scuttle any attempt in this direction. They will succeed, unless Nigerians rise up to challenge them as a group which who currently represents the biggest threat to the growth and development of Nigerian democracy.