This piece is re-published here within the context of the imperative of giving space to contending reactions to the Supreme Court ruling on financial autonomy of local government councils. The reactions have been flowing, capturing the Nigerian diversity. The ECOWAS preface to it is as it is in the original. Odion-Akhaine, the author, is a professor of Political Science at the Lagos State University (LASU).
By Prof Sylvester Odion-Akhaine
Good morning, Mr. President. If you were my sole reader, I would have stopped this column. Events happening in our country and the West Africa sub-region indicate that you probably do not read this unsolicited advice I give you through this medium pro bono. That said, I will speak to two issues, namely your re-election as ECOWAS chairman and the Supreme Court judgment on Local government autonomy.
Sadly, the intellect level in our country is being degraded daily by self-centered public officials amidst notable and surplus egg-heads that can do better.
You were re-elected by your colleagues in ECOWAS as their chair for a second term with the sole mandate to bring back the breakaway countries who had coalesced into an intergovernmental body, the Alliance of Sahel States (ASS) into the fold. You had barely spent a month as the organisation’s chair when in reacting to the coup of July 23, 2023, in the Niger Republic, you impulsively spoke of a sub-regional military intervention to restore the deposed president to power. You did not acquaint yourself with the points at issue.
To be sure, government institutions like the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) and the National Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) could have helped. Even a phone call to Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, Nigeria’s former Foreign Minister, could have yielded some cautious steps to take.
It looks like ECOWAS might completely disintegrate due to your tactless statement. I hope it was not a case of the hands of Saul and the voice of Jacob.
Mr. President, know that your re-election was not borne out of love for your leadership quality, it can be attributed to two reasons. One is that Nigeria is the biggest financial of the sub-regional body and your re-election would ensure an unhindered financial flow.
Two, very fundamental, is that you should put together, the house you have put asunder. Period! Between you and me, it would be a tall order under the circumstances. God knows I am passionate about African unity.
Mr President, you would recall that when local government autonomy was in court I warned you about it and its implication for the polity. I had thought you would beat a retreat and step down the case and find a political solution to it through dialogue. Now, the verdict of the Supreme Court has further undermined the federal essentiality or foundation of the Nigerian state.
I am restating my earlier arguments that, perhaps, you did not heed. The first point is that the creation of additional local governments in the country, from some 301, in 1976 to 774 in 1996 is concentrated politics. Those who created local governments did so to expand elite accommodation and avenues for state capture by the ruling clique.
In doing so, they sought to make the local government a tier of the Nigerian state instead of being a tier of government in that government is one of the features of the state, others are population, sovereignty, territoriality, and ‘masculinity’ (the monopoly over the use of the instrument of the coercion). To be sure, local government creation was not solely informed by the question of subsidiarity, in other words, about bringing government closer to the local people, but the ruling clique ensured that it was constitutionalised in the transition instruments in 1999, that is, the grundnorm.
Mr President, you don’t resolve a contradiction with a contradiction. To do the right thing, everything about the local government should fall within the legislative powers of the states that are parties to the federal covenant. What the Supreme Court has done is to reify local governments as a tier of the Nigerian State rather than as a tier of government (the full text of the judgment is not yet available for proper scrutiny).
The subtext is simply state capture through a centralised allocation of resources by the free-riding clique running the affairs of the country. Overall, aggrandise the arbitrarily created 774 local government areas in the country by a direct allocation from the federation account.
The Supreme Court judgment, the fine details are yet to be made public is applauded for restoring the financial muscles of local governments, and that latter can now perform its role. It is also being hailed as the triumph of case law by prescribing the direct transfer of funds to the local government.
A careful examination of Section 162 (6) states interalia the establishment of a “State Joint Local Government Account” where both Federal allocations to the Local Government Council and from the Government of the State have an element of horizontal accountability that has been abused by the state governors, being the reason for ostensible clamour for so-called financial autonomy.
The framers of the Constitution have an oversight in mind to have so engrossed that section of the Constitution. It is for this reason that in AG Lagos v AG Federation, the Supreme Court held that local government allocation must be passed through the state government.
However, there is no hedge anywhere that says that local government chairmen will not end up being bigger thieves than the state governors. What is at issue here is the failure to implement our extant laws without the anti-justice mediation of politicians. Politicians who rape their states and abuse public trust ought not to be immune from the laws of the land.
This original sin of the 1999 Constitution, can be amended. What the National Assembly must cure by way of alteration is to abolish the allocation of revenue to the local government from the federation and dualise it between the centre and the federating units. The federal covenant is between constituents or peoples composing the state, and not local government as an administrative instrument.
The supreme legislative powers to create local government areas should be domiciled within the state as engrossed in Section 7 (1) which 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 functions of such councils”. There should no longer be any Act for consequential provisions.
Mr President, it is to be noted that unless the details of the present judgment cure the contradictions pointed out in this piece, you will have to travel the road Obasanjo trod in the case of onshore-off-shore dichotomy that was settled politically despite the Supreme Court ruling in favour of the Federal Government. The centre component of the state has no business in meddling in a matter that falls within the jurisdiction of the federating states.
