By Obi Nwakanma
In 1950, following the publication of its policy report, “The Colonial Empire, 1939-1949,” the British colonial administration came to the urgent conclusion that “… the building up of a system of efficient and democratic local government is a cardinal feature of British policy in Africa. It is now recognised that the political progress of the territories is dependent on the development of responsibility in local government; that without sound local government, democratic political system at the centre is not possible.” This is significant, given the debate now going on about the meaning of “restructuring” in Nigeria.
The All Progressive Congress (APC) which ran on the promise that it would back the “restructuring” of Nigeria, has now backed out of this promise, of course signaling the onset of an internal party policy crisis. In a statement by its National Chairman, Mr. Oyegun, the Party now says it does not know what “restructuring” means. It is a classic volte-face. But “Restructuring” is the refinement of the institutional structures that undergird the workings of a system in order to either firm it up or prevent it from collapse, or make it more efficient and beneficial to those which the system ought to serve. Nigeria is in crisis mode because over 99% of its citizens – the true stakeholders of its national enterprise – feel that the nation does not serve them. It serves probably less than 1% of the population. Nigeria, as a relatively new and modern nation however is a “work in progress” and requires consistent fine-tuning until it finds its harmonious balance through either the parliamentary process or by referendum.
We need to create and shape the Nigerian state out of the chaos of its history. That is the meaning of “restructuring.” In 1950, the Eastern region enacted the Local Government Law No. 16. It was followed by the Western Region in 1952, with its own Local government Law. Soon after Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe became Premier of the East, he initiated a local government reform that turned the Eastern region in 1955 into the first part of Nigeria to run the most modern and most developed local government system in Nigeria. While the North and Western region chose to run on the “Native Administration” system, the East, in line with its own highly democratic traditions, adopted the County council model of local government administration. By April 1956, the East established a system of local government councils – that consisted of one Municipal Council, 17 County councils, 79 District Councils, and numerous local councils, a fact already detailed well in C.E. Emezi’s insightful paper, “Concepts in the Development of Local Government Administration in Nigeria.” The point of this is to highlight the necessity for local autonomy as a guarantee for Nigeria’s political and economic development.
The appropriation of the power of local governance through the years have left Nigerians disempowered, angry and skeptical about their place.
The Dasuki local government reforms of 1976 that “harmonized” and centralized local government administration and development in Nigeria is a great disaster. Local governments once were charged with providing local safety and security, public health, the development of local markets and industry, and the maintenance of public work infrastructure, including electricity, water, sewer services, and so on. There were county and municipal jails, local policing, District hospitals, streets and roads administration, and so on. The concentration of these functions in the hands of the central and state administrations have led to a collapse and an alienation of the public, and the loss of civic consciousness and faith. Now, part of the structural changes that must take place in Nigeria must be the restoration of the power of local governance. But the federal government must remove itself from determining the number and the funding of local governments in Nigeria. The 774 local governments in Nigeria must be abolished, and a new criteria set under the constitution to regulate the establishment and incorporation of local administration. It must be based on (a) verifiable population clusters.
A local government must be constituted by a delineation, after a proper census, of communities with at least ten thousand inhabitants or residents (b) Any cluster of citizens wishing to establish or incorporate a local government, following a proper petition, must show a viable tax base with the evidence of free-standing property, and the willingness or ability to generate enough local taxes to fund municipal services – a public school system, streets, public health, etc. without depending on state or federal funding, otherwise, such a local area must be attached to more viable administrations, (c) competition for federal funding must be based on verifiable projects provided by the CDBGs – the Community Development Block Grants as direct partnership grants based on verifiable and accountable projects. For instance, if there is a federal program for Malaria remediation, a properly constituted local government must be prepared to establish its own program, and show evidence of its own viable program for which it must seek or compete for a partnership grant which must be accounted for, but which has direct and verifiable impact on people in local communities. Part of the disenchantment with the current system is that for many people in the South, there are local government in the North, which exist only on paper, and nonetheless collect huge federal allocations to these local governments that go into private pockets, and hence the so-called poverty in the North where only few individuals benefit from these distorted systems, collecting huge Nigerian resources which they then spend in Dubai, Cairo, or Mecca.
It is easy today, using digital footprints, to establish Nigeria’s national population, and part of the restructuring that must happen is the ways and means of collecting population data for national development, and the equitable distribution of income. It should now be the duty of the local government to establish and enforce the record of births and deaths in each locality; nobody should be buried without a death certificate issued; no deaths must be left without certification by the local Public Health Department signed by its Chief Coroner. Any local government that is incapable or establishing a coroner’s office, or paying a Coroner, should never receive state or federal grants. Part of the structural deficiencies in Nigeria occurred with the atomisation of states. The National Assembly must convene and abolish the states by an Act of the National Assembly, and then restructure or collapse Nigeria into six regions. Each region must then establish its system of local administration, and with such power delineated to local government function according to the needs of its locality. The point has been made that the current structure of states and its funding system is far too expensive for Nigeria which clearly can no longer support or carry the excess of bureaucratic deadweight of which the current state system constitutes. The minister for Finance’s recent revelation that Nigeria now budgets only to “pay salaries” with nothing left for public services ought to startle Nigerians into confronting the realities of their precarious nationhood.
Recently, talks have been about establishing “state police.” The constitution of Nigeria must not limit public safety and security to an exclusive function of the federal administration or even the state administration; Public safety falls within a horizontal necessity with local governments as its most important lynchpin. Therefore we need a very efficient police service – not just a federal police or a state police but also local or municipal police services, each with clearly defined roles. A restructuring of the judicial system will also empower a local Magistracy to the function of law enforcement and oversight. It would solve the problem of sending soldiers to the streets. As I promised last week, at some point, I shall address the question of police and judicial reform more closely, but for this week, yes, restructuring is imperative. The trouble with Nigeria is really not corruption, but systemic dysfunction, which makes it impossible for citizens to even recognize the full meaning of “corruption” – the fact that corruption includes buying WAEC papers for your ward, or paying bribes to a policeman, or seeking to jump ahead in a queue, or throwing refuse out to the street and clogging up municipal sewers, or shitting into rivers, or even not registering your vehicle or property properly for the purposes of tax assessment or collection. It is structural deficiency that makes it possible for an officer of the public to have direct access to public funds without the kind oversight necessary to prevent its misuse. Restructuring means correcting the in-built structural problems that keep citizens down and alienated; that concentrates power in only a few dangerous hands.
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/07/what-is-restructuring/ |
