By: Salisu Suleiman
Local Government Chairmen in Nigeria live in a world of their own, completely detached from reality. Most of them have full retinues of bodyguards and are driven around in convoys of SUVs, with police orderlies to open and close doors for them. Getting appointments to meet them is virtually an exercise in futility. They dispense favours to acolytes and praise-singers with the thoughtless abandon: the entire local government funds are theirs to spend as they wish.
At the Local Government Secretariat, they are surrounded by meaningless protocols; their paraphernalia of office would embarrass the head of state of a small country. They can in turn be brash, arrogant, suave, solicitous and crude, but one thing they share is a well-horned capacity to detect the slightest opportunity for fraud. Their word is law and they believe they know everything.
Except what the job description of a local government chairman is.
At a lower level, local government officials also live like royalty. As administrators, they help themselves liberally from the public purse by exploiting the weaknesses of the archaic accounting systems still in use. They are just as powerful as chairmen because they are the institutional memories of councils and know where every kobo is, and therefore how to steal it. Local administration in Nigeria today embodies theft, serving only serve to devolve poverty.
How did we get to this point?
Prior to military intervention in politics, the Native Authority structures comprised two-tier multipurpose units of governance, made up of the parent local government council at the upper level, and the subordinate council at the lower level. The military introduced the area development committees at the District or Zonal levels of local government administration. They abolished the District Officer, Local Authority and City Manager systems that were in place prior to 1975.
When the Murtala Administration initiated the process of local government reform through Decree No 32 of 1975 (10), the policy aimed to fast track development in the rural areas. The intention was to enhance development at the local level and give people a voice in the democratic process. It certainly did not envisage that council chairmen would become the local tyrants we see today, strutting about with no ideas of what their functions are. They are experts in awarding grossly inflated contracts and diverting public funds, or as Nuhu Ribadu would say, ‘direct stealing’.
Nigeria’s Constitution recognizes local government areas as the third tier of government after the federal and state governments. Their functions are clearly defined. They are entitled allocation of funds from the federation account for use in carrying out their functions. All of Nigeria’s 776 local councils each receive billions of naira in allocations, but nobody knows where these monies end up. Where are the local roads, dispensaries, schools and markets? Where are the projects to speed up development? Where are the trillions? No wonder it is now vogue for chairmen to own houses in London, Dubai and South Africa. And because there are little checks, accountability is weak and audit systems compromised. The public is generally disinterested.
And so, the looting goes on.
That is why today, there are places in Nigeria that cannot be reached by any form of motorized vehicle; reaching those places entails abandoning vehicles and trudging on foot. That is why in some areas today, medical emergencies are transported to clinics on motorcycles or donkeys. That is why in many places pupils still study under trees in lieu of classrooms. That is why we must ask: Where are the boreholes that are supposed to provide potable water? Why do so many people die from preventable diseases like malaria, typhoid, cholera, dysentery, and meningitis? Why do we have mountains of refuse and clogged drainages all over the country?
If you seek answers to these puzzles, look no further than your local government officials.
After paying staff salaries every month, the party begins. Bogus contracts are awarded and re-awarded at grossly inflated rates but never executed. Salaries are paid to hundreds and thousands of non-existing workers. Unnecessary workshops and conferences (including to the UK to learn local government administration!) are paid for. Unneeded consultancy and feasibility studies are commissioned, paid for and promptly dumped. Boreholes with no water are displayed as achievements. Classrooms that will be blown away by the next rains are inaugurated. Cheap motorcycles are distributed to youth in the name of poverty alleviation. And by the time the orgy of spending is over, allocations for another month would have arrived. So the madness continues.
Is it any surprise that local government areas, for all intents and purposes have become local problems?
Local Government Chairmen in Nigeria live in a world of their own, completely detached from reality. Most of them have full retinues of bodyguards and are driven around in convoys of SUVs, with police orderlies to open and close doors for them. Getting appointments to meet them is virtually an exercise in futility. They dispense favours to acolytes and praise-singers with the thoughtless abandon: the entire local government funds are theirs to spend as they wish.
At the Local Government Secretariat, they are surrounded by meaningless protocols; their paraphernalia of office would embarrass the head of state of a small country. They can in turn be brash, arrogant, suave, solicitous and crude, but one thing they share is a well-horned capacity to detect the slightest opportunity for fraud. Their word is law and they believe they know everything.
Except what the job description of a local government chairman is.
At a lower level, local government officials also live like royalty. As administrators, they help themselves liberally from the public purse by exploiting the weaknesses of the archaic accounting systems still in use. They are just as powerful as chairmen because they are the institutional memories of councils and know where every kobo is, and therefore how to steal it. Local administration in Nigeria today embodies theft, serving only serve to devolve poverty.
How did we get to this point?
Prior to military intervention in politics, the Native Authority structures comprised two-tier multipurpose units of governance, made up of the parent local government council at the upper level, and the subordinate council at the lower level. The military introduced the area development committees at the District or Zonal levels of local government administration. They abolished the District Officer, Local Authority and City Manager systems that were in place prior to 1975.
When the Murtala Administration initiated the process of local government reform through Decree No 32 of 1975 (10), the policy aimed to fast track development in the rural areas. The intention was to enhance development at the local level and give people a voice in the democratic process. It certainly did not envisage that council chairmen would become the local tyrants we see today, strutting about with no ideas of what their functions are. They are experts in awarding grossly inflated contracts and diverting public funds, or as Nuhu Ribadu would say, ‘direct stealing’.
Nigeria’s Constitution recognizes local government areas as the third tier of government after the federal and state governments. Their functions are clearly defined. They are entitled allocation of funds from the federation account for use in carrying out their functions. All of Nigeria’s 776 local councils each receive billions of naira in allocations, but nobody knows where these monies end up. Where are the local roads, dispensaries, schools and markets? Where are the projects to speed up development? Where are the trillions? No wonder it is now vogue for chairmen to own houses in London, Dubai and South Africa. And because there are little checks, accountability is weak and audit systems compromised. The public is generally disinterested.
And so, the looting goes on.
That is why today, there are places in Nigeria that cannot be reached by any form of motorized vehicle; reaching those places entails abandoning vehicles and trudging on foot. That is why in some areas today, medical emergencies are transported to clinics on motorcycles or donkeys. That is why in many places pupils still study under trees in lieu of classrooms. That is why we must ask: Where are the boreholes that are supposed to provide potable water? Why do so many people die from preventable diseases like malaria, typhoid, cholera, dysentery, and meningitis? Why do we have mountains of refuse and clogged drainages all over the country?
If you seek answers to these puzzles, look no further than your local government officials.
After paying staff salaries every month, the party begins. Bogus contracts are awarded and re-awarded at grossly inflated rates but never executed. Salaries are paid to hundreds and thousands of non-existing workers. Unnecessary workshops and conferences (including to the UK to learn local government administration!) are paid for. Unneeded consultancy and feasibility studies are commissioned, paid for and promptly dumped. Boreholes with no water are displayed as achievements. Classrooms that will be blown away by the next rains are inaugurated. Cheap motorcycles are distributed to youth in the name of poverty alleviation. And by the time the orgy of spending is over, allocations for another month would have arrived. So the madness continues.
Is it any surprise that local government areas, for all intents and purposes have become local problems?
It is a pity that well intentioned agencies have ended up this way. Did you say that the funds come directly to the local Govt Chairmen? Are you sure that the money is not recycled back to it's source for party consumption?
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