NULGE STRIKES: ARISING ISSUES OF CORRUPTION AND CONSTITUTIONALISM. Recently, the National union of local government Employees representing the 774 local government Areas in the country went on preemptive strikes to protest the reluctance of the senate to agree to the constitutional amendment that will facilitate the end to the inconvenient marriage of local governments with their state governments Co joined by joint accounts in the receipt of federal allocations. The House of Representatives had earlier given the nod for the fiscal divorce but an obstinate and insensitive senate refused the amendment, perhaps for reasons that have not been made public. This development is coming in the heels of generalized outcry for fiscal autonomy for local governments in other to facilitate the development of the grass roots, capacity building and infrastructural developments. Presently, state governments under varied pretenses of Joint Partnership for Development projects have made illegal deductions from the Local government allocations leaving them with nothing to carry out capital developments.The striking fact are that most of these funds end up in the private pockets of less than 1 per cent of the population, repeatedly over the years. Trillions of Naira meant for the development of local governments has been siphoned by successive governments who have ignored the Outcry. The local governments in recent times have been stultified by a growing greed of the political class who now sponsor persons of questionable character to contest and chair its affairs as venture capitalism. Victory means for these people the monthly theft of billions of Naira. In the South East, The denizens of the infamous 419 now sponsor their candidates into elective positions to superintend the stealing of local government funds. But the recent agitations is perceived as an out cry against the State governments interferences with the funds of the local governments in Nigeria by the use of Caretaker committees and sole administrators who are instructed to pay salaries only and aid the diversion of the funds into the state accounts which end up often in private pockets or failed projects often smoke screens for the plunder exercises. In some cases, the funds are generally diverted to the state coffers to meet premeditated ends. THE LAW. The Nigeria constitution did not in anyway make provisions for the uses of Caretaker committees or the sole Administrators. These entities are by their very nature constitutional aberrations. What the constitution conceived was “elected” councilmen made up of councilors and chairmen. Indeed section 7 (7)of the 1999 constitution provides for the election of Council chairmen: “The system of Local Governments by democratically elected local government councils is under this constitution guaranteed and accordingly, the government of every state shall subject to section 8 of this constitution, ensure their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, Structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils” whilst the 4th Schedule to the constitution enumerated the functions and duties of the local councils. These functions have been hampered by the lack of availability of funds, where in rare cases we have dutiful elected officers willing to contribute in the development of the grass root. What has happened over the years in Nigeria is that the development of the country has been stultified by outright stealing of funds meant for National, State and Local Governments development. Beyond constitutionalism are the issues of corruption. According to a report published by transparency international which should know better made available by Michael Burleigh, the British government has given to Nigeria over 400 Billion dollars since 1960 which has been stolen in addition to the estimated 380 Billion dollars of oil money which were misappropriated in the same period by the Political class and the military. In just two years, Nigeria has lost 38 Billion dollars of revenue to oil thieves. According to Michael, the only countries as “dysfunctional, derelict and downright dangerous like Nigeria are Haiti, and Congo” Over 70% of Nigerians live below poverty line for a country that has 35 Billion Barrels of Oil reserves, 100 trillion cubic feet of gas with the world highest paid legislators who earn 122,000 pounds, almost twice that of British MP. Why has Nigeria remained corrupt unaccountable and self destructive? This has been attributed to the resource curse that translates to the misnomer that developing countries that have no mineral resources tend to have rapid growth than those that have abundance which tend to have the worse growth rate. The reason for this phenomenon is because of the in flow of money from natural resources which make the leadership corrupt and unaccountable to the people because the running of government is not dependent on taxation, leading to the tax payers in differences. Thus the target of the political class is on the resources allocated to the States and the councils. The use of joint accounts has enabled State governments to steal, tamper, divert and siphoned funds meant for local government development through the uses of sole administrators and illegal caretaker committees. Thus the promised reforms of the constitutional amendments will enable the local governments to attain fiscal Autonomy and bring about the development of the grass roots. The failure of the senate to promote this development is inimical to our national interest and for the local governments, it is not yet uhuru. The agitations must continue but real and valued local government fiscal Autonomy will still be meaningless if it facilitates the rogue appetite of corrupt county government officials.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 07:53:32 +0000
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