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From: maggie anaeto <maganaeto@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 15:07:42 +0000 (GMT)
To: ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com<ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com>
ReplyTo: maggie anaeto <maganaeto@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: AGBAKOBA AND THE ROT IN OUR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
AGBAKOBA AND THE ROT IN OUR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
Ayo Olukotun
Human Rights Activist and lawyer, Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), one of our national newspapers reported on Monday, has filed a suit asking a Lagos Federal High Court to declare that the 14 states that have not yet conducted local council elections are not entitled to receive public revenue from the Federation Account. Arguing that failure to conduct elections into the local councils is the equivalent of a civilian coup d'etat. Agbakoba in what may turn out to be a landmark judgement is seeking judicial declaration that any monies paid for the running of the councils is unconstitutional.
Obviously, it will be foolhardy to comment at this point on the substance of a case before the court of law. Nonetheless, the wider dimensions of the decay of local governments of which the undemocratic status of several of them is a mere symptom are of public interest. It will be recalled for example, that the latest election into local councils is that of Anambra state held two weeks ago and in which the ruling All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) scored close to a 100 percent. Disconcerting is the fact that until the recent elections no elections had been conducted into councils in Anambra since 1998. There is the point too that the Anambra election which was accompanied, if the Catholic church is to be believed, by widespread irregularities typifies a pattern in which the party that holds power at the state level comes up with an election that gives it 100 percent victory or a little short for it.
That is another way of saying that these elections are mostly charades, stage-managed by the ruling parties on terms completely dictated by them. Fundamentally, this is an expression of the continental syndrome in which ruling parties whether at the federal or sub national levels hardly lose elections. In fact, one point of departure of consolidating democracies in Africa is their ability to hold genuine elections in which incumbents lose to the opposition.
In the case of our local councils, the incumbents do not find it sufficient to simply win, they must win massively by scoring something in the neighbourhood of 100 percent evoking the sham elections conducted by many of Africa's dictators. Considering that grassroots democracy is a laboratory and incubator of democratic practices on a wider level, the annulment of democracy at that stratum of government is a bad omen for the possibilities of democratic consolidation at the national level.
Agbakoba's legal initiative to compel states to hold council elections is no doubt an inspiring one; but it only opens a Pandora's box of the monumental subversion of democracy and good governance at sub national levels. As this columnist has repeatedly argued opposition to an often incompetent and corrupt central government will only be taken seriously when it learns that advocacy and moral reformism are better begun at one's doorsteps rather than in the distant neighbourhood of the government at the centre. As a citizen I find it difficult to see the sincerity of politicians who truncate democracy in the states they govern while insisting on it at the national level. To be sure it is right to hold politicians at all levels accountable for their actions but it is even better if those who cry foul at the roof tops about other people's transgressions would carry the message back to themselves.
The moral desolation and lack of accountability in our local governments are sad commentaries on the status of democracy and good governance in Nigeria. It was not always this bad, however. Recall for example the impressive efficiency and pro-people policies which characterised the Lagos City Council under the famed chairmanship of Ganiyu Dawodu. That Council, to go back memory lane, ran a wide array of services spanning transportation, educational services and health with a gusto that reminds you of some of the best run boroughs in the United Kingdom. Former governor of Lagos state, Bola Tinubu in a grave side oration described Dawodu who passed on in 2006 as "one committed to excellence in municipal governance. His tenure as chairman of the defunct Lagos City Council witnessed the implementation of the cardinal programmes of the Action Group as well as improvement in the living conditions of the people."
Overtime, however, the quality of grassroots governance declined sharply and today with a few honourable exceptions the Councils are no more than outposts for the sharing of booty drawn from the federation account. Before the current comatose state of the anticorruption agencies, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), the nation through the arrest and prosecution of some thieving local government chairmen had the sense that something was being done about monumental corruption at that level of governance. Today, sadly, nobody apprehends anybody in government about corruption; as ministers accused of corruption but who go unsanctioned hurl abuse at their critics.
Providing insight into the extent of corruption in our local governments, former chairman of the EFCC, Farida Waziri observed that "local governments have become removed from the lives of the people to a point where some chief executives of the local governments no longer reside in the domains they were elected to administer. They drive to the council headquarters in their jeeps from the state capitals, pay salaries, share other monies and disappear until it is time to share the next subvention." This distressing picture is corroborated by many observers and the fact that most of the functions of councils go unattended to while the top stratum of politicians at that level are fully incorporated into the spoils sharing arrangements of the political elite at the state or national level.
The paralysis of governance at its most fundamental level where it touches the lives of the people most is in contrast to what obtains around the globe where in spite of the recession municipal administrations embark on innovative programmes with which they seek to make the highest possible impact. In an earlier essay, 'Development Doldrums: Focus on Sub National Governments' (The Punch April 19, 2013) this writer drew attention illustratively to a Canadian municipality in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada which run impressively, a wide variety of services such as public transportation, policing, public health, water supply and subsidized housing. The reason for drawing attention to best practices around the globe is to invite our political class to reinvent governance and to show what Nigeria can be if it was governed by visionary leaders. Regrettably however it does not appear that we have a political class that is interested in learning or with a few exceptions in employing power as a vehicle of genuine social and economic transformation.
Agbakoba's initiative is a pointer to the possibilities of remedial civic action in notching up governance standards at the grassroots. In the absence of governments that are willing to tackle corruption frontally, civil society must be mobilized to struggle within the limitations of the Nigerian condition by constantly focusing attention on the depth of depravity in governance, and by providing a blueprint of change which a purposeful government could one day dust up and implement.
Prof Olukotun is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Entrepreneurial Studies at Lead City University, Ibadan. ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com 07055841236
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