Mr Olatunji Ambali is the National President of the National Union of Local Government Employees. In this interview with PETER DADA, he speaks about the state of the nation as it concerns the local government administration among other issues
There has been clamour for the autonomy of local governments in Nigeria. What really informed the call ?
We have been amplifying our patriotic call for the actualisation of local government autonomy. The campaign for the actualisation is well-timed having realised problems facing Nigeria as a nation. You can see as of today, you can no longer move from one state to another without initially asking if you will get home safely. There is insecurity in the South, East and North. This is not the Nigeria of our dream. We are bedevilled by abject poverty, joblessness, hopelessness and threats to the nationhood. Everybody now resorts to ethnic agitation. We have come this far because Nigeria is no longer working. The nation has failed the masses. At 61, Nigeria has abandoned her constitutional role of guaranteeing security. This can be traced to the systematic decay and destruction of the local government system. As of today, you can no longer visibly see local governments performing their roles. This is not deliberate. This is the result of the forceful seizure of local governments allocations by the state political activists and the denial of Nigerian people to freely choose their own leadership at the local government level. This can be traced to the use of instrumentality of law to corner the internally generated revenue of local governments .
How possible is this when there is a constitution?
When you look at the constitution, on the residual list, the collective use of local government funds are clearly itemised but as of today, we have seen governors using the state houses of assemblies, as a result of the lacuna in the 1999 Constitution, specifically Section 162 and Section 7 B and C, which says appropriation of funds to local governments shall be done by the state houses of assembly and also goes ahead to give the power of administration, control and appropriation to the state House of Assemblies. They now hide under that lacuna to promulgate illegally some laws that have contradicted the Constitution. For instance, the power to collect tenement rate is vested in the local government. Unfortunately state governors use the houses of assembly to legislate by saying they are charging land use charges which is illegal thereby denying the local government the ability to collect tenement rates among other illegal collections.
Recently, there was a court case instituted by the local governments in Oyo State against Governor Seyi Makinde and the judgment was clear that no state government has power to collect rates at motor parks. Yet all the states in Nigeria except Oyo State continuously abuse this procedure, thereby pauperizing the local governments. Also Supreme Court judgment of 2002 clearly stated that funding of primary education can only be participated in, by the local government. It says our role is participatory, unfortunately in Nigeria, except Governor Nyesom Wike (of Rivers State) who funds primary education by the state allocation, all the states in Nigeria are using local government funds to fund primary education 100 per cent. All these illegalities have crippled local government system.
The worst is that the federal allocations for all the local governments in Nigeria have been hijacked from the coffer of the local governments by the state governments.
So what exactly is the position of NULGE on this matter ?
For us, we believe we should have qualitative leadership of local government and that is why we are calling for direct funding of local governments. Allowing state governments to be in charge of local government funds is synonymous with giving same food to a lion and a dog and you ask them to go and share it. When the lion finishes eating the food ,it will go for the dog and even eat the dog. That is what we are witnessing presently in Nigeria. We need a politically-free and financially independent local government administration. The local government has been raped over time. It has witnessed systematic destruction as a result of misrule and stealing of local government funds, thereby militating against progressive development at the grassroots level. No wonder, as of today, we are bedevilled by insecurity and poverty. We are deprived and also encumbered by unemployment, homelessness just because we have a failing system in the local government. Regrettably, federal allocations for all the local governments in Nigeria have been hijacked, misapplied, misappropriated and outright siphoned from the local government. The Joint Allocation Committee has become a conduit through which local government has been sucked dry. This systematic destruction has led to hopelessness, rural-urban migration, insurgency, terrorism, kidnapping and ‘yahoo-yahoo’ going on. We are aware that no government can create gainful employment alone but role of government to create enabling environment is sacrosanct. The local government must be functional.
The issue of the VAT has become a serious controversy between the state and the federal governments. Is NULGE too having the plan to go to court to challenge the issue of tenement rates and other LG collections which you said had been taken away from local councils?
That is for the ALGON (Association of Local Government of Nigeria) to do but regrettably, the ALGON that is supposed to stand in the middle has become a toothless bulldog. If the governors can go to court to challenge the issue of VAT, then you may want to ask yourself that what is the essence of ALGON. Even ALGON is culpable in the illegal deduction of local government funds. Last month (September), the Ondo state government deducted over N200m from local government funds. ALGON is an associate. They have no power to deduct local government fund. This is illegal. So, for us, once you have that kind of ALGON, whose leadership is determined by the state political actors, who has no independence, who cannot act by itself, what do you expect ?
Do you think if the LG autonomy is achieved, all what you described as misrule , stealing and the corruption in the system would stop ?
Yes, some are saying there is much corruption in the local government system. I want to tell you that the level of corruption in the local government is one-tenth of what is going on at federal and state levels. It is at the federal and state governments that we see snake vomiting money. I am not saying we are free from corruption but the level is very minimal . It is on this note that NULGE calls for establishment of all anti-corruption agencies at the local government level to keep local government operatives on their toes.
If the call for the autonomy is eventually succeeds , do you think the democratic and electoral processes would be handled properly at the LG level without the state government’s influence? Are we going to have local government electoral commission as we have at national and state independent electoral commissions ?
It will be better if the INEC handles the electoral process of the local government because the state independent electoral commissions are no longer in useful. They have not conducted a single credible election since we started this democracy. What they have been doing is coronation, promotion and appointment. When the green party is in power, for example in any state, all the councilors, all the chairmen are green party members. When the blue party gets to power, the same thing happens, there is no saint among them and that is a threat to the political wish and aspiration of the people. They have messed up the exercise and that is why we NULGE clamours for the scraping of state independent electoral commission. It is a corrupt agency that has not been performing, thereby denying Nigerians the opportunity to fully choose their leaders and what is the implication?
If you allow governors to appoint their cronies to be in charge of local governments in Nigeria, it shows that such leader will not be accountable to the peoples because who pays the piper, dictates the tune . The state is autonomous, why is INEC conducting their elections? House of Representative members that are coming from the LGs, from various local government and senatorial districts, why is INEC conducting their elections? Why is INEC conducting governorship elections and house of assembly elections ? We are saying we have three tiers of government, we should allow INEC to conduct elections that will be credible, transparent and acceptable in all the three tiers . Let us give Nigerian people the right to choose their leader from their grassroots, let us allow governance of inclusiveness.
PUNCH