Nigeria’s Plague Of Locusts -By Kene Obiezu

Idleness marks them as sharply as the skunk`s spray marks its territory; there are ghost workers whose macabre shadows never retreat; there is the neglect which scorns those they are supposed to tend with the force of sack clothes that simply refuse to come off. In Nigerian local governments, locusts operate with chilling cunning.

Section 7 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,1999 (as amended) contains some of the most important provisions of the 1999 Constitution on local government and local government autonomy.

The Constitution did not stop there. The First Schedule to the Constitution prescribes Nigeria`s seven-hundred- and seventy-four local government areas. Nigeria has thirty-six states including the Federal Capital Territory. These seven hundred and seventy-four local governments fall into Nigeria`s thirty-six states.

In Nigeria`s jarringly dysfunctional federalism, the local government has been variously described as the third tier of government, coming after the federal and state governments in position but certainly not in preeminence. In fact, ideally, it should rank as the most important tier.

This is because it is the government closest to the people, a   government of the grassroots – one most relatable to those abandoned by the tragic elitism of power that so shamefully darkens Nigerian politics. But the stark reality in many local government areas in Nigeria is that nothing works or walks there except salary-spoilt workers and their ghostly counterparts.

Even a casual visit would convince the skeptical. Local governments are supposed to take charge of local affairs in local areas and support rural populations in critical sectors such as education, agriculture, housing, basic amenities, health et al. But that is far from the case. Instead, one can easily observe that it is at the local government level that Nigeria`s extremely rickety machinery of government finally breaks down. There is a lot of blame to go round for this but the biggest ration   must be placed on the door mats of state governors and the indolent Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission.

In Nigeria, local governments in spite of their constitutionally guaranteed autonomy, or at least, right to same, largely operate as playgrounds for power- drunk governors.

Because allocations are not directly made to local governments but to state governments which are then expected to remit same to local governments, money is both push and pull.

When many state governors are done siphoning, what is meant for their local governments, they refuse to conduct local government elections as at when due. Instead, they set up caretaker committees to superintend over the affairs of the local governments. Predictably, these caretaker committees are manned by their cronies who see the membership of such committees as insufficient reward for the hatchet jobs they do for their principals.

When the governors allow for the elaborate charade that pass for local government (s)elections, their cronies and allies win and come into what little money is left for development of the grassroots.

Together with governors and obsequious legislators, local government chairmen and councillors form a dense plague of locusts that is eating not just into the resources of local governments in Nigeria but the very fabric of local government administration in Nigeria.

At the end of the day, it is a question of corruption, of scandalously weak institutions and even weaker men; of maladministration and the malcontents who milk it.

Funds meant for impoverished local governments are siphoned, then withheld by governors. When eventually the money is released to the local governments, the locusts hurry to feast. At the end of the day, there is practically nothing left to attend to critical assignments in rural areas.

So, Nigeria`s poorest, many of whom are rural citizens, are left to their devices, at the mercy of those for whom avarice is an art.

A discordant disconnect rocks government in Nigeria and raises plaintive questions about the extremely slow journey Nigeria is making towards the future it supposedly envisions for its children.

Calls to amend the constitution to make operative the autonomy of local governments have gone unheeded. Legislators at all levels have been counselled to empower local government administration by law as well as take its most delectable leaves away from the reach of locusts.

However, the task appears a forbiddingly difficult one because behind the structures stand the sentinels many of whom are plagued by cowardice, but especially avarice.

Institutions do not just work on their own, they are manned. Until those who man them approach their tasks with tenacity and integrity, local governments in Nigeria will continue to struggle.

It does not augur well for those for whom the only government they know is local.

Kene Obiezu,

keneobiezu@gmail.com