Function and the right of local goverment in nigeria are been taken by the state goverment said by liborous oshoma

 There's Nowhere in the Constitution that Gives States Authorisation to Draw LGA Funds - Oshoma

The Supreme Court has affirmed the financial autonomy of Nigeria's 774 local governments in its judgment on Thursday a seven-member panel of the Court unanimously upheld the suit brought by the federal government to strengthen the independence of local governments in the country a member of the panel Justice Emmanuel agim who delivered the Court's lead judgment held that the local governments across the country should fromd Thursday received their allocations directly from the accountant general of the Federation.

Liborous oshoma a lawyer and human rights activist did a simply review about judicial and in question in section 162 of the Constitution and the ruling of their Lordships the seven man Panel LED, Oshoma also said but before I go to section 162 please permit me read the fourth schedule because a lot of people don't understand what this had led us to for schedule you know talks about the functions of the local government and if I read this functions to you there is no State in Nigeria where local government today is performing these functions because they have completely been taken over by the state government.

 The main functions of a local government Council are as follow the consideration and making of recommendation for a state Commission on economic planning or any similar body the economic development of the state particularly as far as the area of authority of the council or the state are affected and proposal made by the set commission body collection of rates radio and TV licenses establishment and maintenance of cemeter barrier ground and homes for destitute or inir licensing of bicycle trucks other than mechanically prepared trucks K wheel-barrel and cats establishment maintenance and regulation of Slaughter slabs slaughter houses Market motor parks and public conveniences construction and maintenance of Road Street lightning drain Highway Parks garden and Open Spaces naming of roads and numbering of houses provision of and and maintenance of public conveniences registration of B-debt and marriages assessment of privately owned houses or tournament rate and the list goes.

Then you now come to section 162 that you referred to a lot of misconception also if you look at section 16 to subsection 6, 7 and 8 particularly because it says subsection C says each state shall maintain special account to be called State joint local government account into which shall be paid all allocation to the local government Council of the state from the Federation account and from the government of the state. There's this misconception that account is for the state government also to draw funds from there is nowhere in subsection 6 7 and 8 where the state was authorized to draw funds from that account what you have in subsection 7 it says each state shall pay to the local government Council in its area of jurisdiction such proportion of its total revenue on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the National Assembly subsection 8 says the amount standing to the credit of local government Council of State shall be distributed among the local government Council of that state on such term and in such manner as may be prescribed by the House of Assembly of the state so if you look at this section it does not authorize the state to draw funds.

 I've listened to a lot of former local government chairman speak on the issues of local government revenue why I went to the function you find out that even salaries for local government have completely be taken over by States States pay salaries for local government officials they pay they collect tenament rate the number streets they collected signages even um uh registration and at the end of the day they create what they call joint account and then I say we're trying to manage the fund so we share to the state but the Supreme Court says now payment should be made directly to the local councils now does the ruling by the Supreme Court does it repeal that section of section 162 that you have you have qued because the state joint uh account will still exist and the state say what they charge is Administrative charges.

Administrative charges for collection of funds by virt of Section 163 charges and and so the that's where I think this a a step in the right direction but until we also amend section 197 until we amend section 197 to ensure that the election into the local government is conducted by a body different from from State electoral body who will just be dancing around the issues because at the end of the day the state Governors are I call them Emperors are still going to appoint people into this local government and then the revenue comes to you and they tell you and they tell you God help you don't bring it back you won't you you will be removed from office the next day they look for opportunities to remove you so that's where the challenge is it's a step in the right direction it will encourage people to now begin to look into the local government revenue the same way people look at state revenue.

 We you know we don't criticize local state electoral bodies the way we criticize o or or talk about ey neck if we Channel half of the energy that we used to you know talk about R neck to some of these State electoral bodies we probably you know not have what we have the selection processes that we have at the state level and then we'll be able to say truly with this judgment that will you know we'll be able to get a lot from it but what this judgment has simply done is to state the law as it is but implementation because in Nigeria our problems are not lack of laws even this law as it is if we are to implement it ordinarily you won't have this problem but implementation is the key problem here.

 We know before the program we're talking about corruption and um incompetence you find out that two of them go together and to at the local government level what happens because of corruption you now bring incompetent people and you know at the end of day the same people will tell you the local government have been reduced to not they are really not doing anything after all what are they doing so don't bother yourself and while in the actual sense what has happened is that they completely take away the functions of the local government ensure that the people that are there are people who are there at the mercy of the governor who will see uh who is um who will Koto to the governor and once that guy that guy is there he Do not complain because at least when you're on the table you you don't complain when you're when you eating so that's a challenge appointments and the people who are there because .

The issue raised by Justice pertains to the existence of caretaker committees, despite a previous Supreme Court ruling deeming them illegal. This situation persists in various states, including Rivers State, where caretaker committees are currently operational. While legislation exists, the challenge lies in its implementation. It is imperative to devise strategies for enforcement and implementation to strengthen the governance of local authorities.

 I think at some point we will have to you know use um some um strong means to implement some of these laws because the takes us back to the obasan issue if you look at section 7 I the last time I was here that was the same thing we discussed section s the system of a local government by democratically elected local government council is under this cons guarantee and so there is no room for adok mayor uh or whatever name so if funds that are meant for local government should be sent directly to the local government I also think that funds meant for local government should not be given to persons who are not democratically elected at the local government level once we do that and then we'll still have challenges like I said section 197 but at least we have semblance even if they are pretending to conduct election would have semblance of democratic process at the local government level unlike where Governors just sit down waits for tenure to expire or in in some cases sack the entire local government create a law by the status of assembly who has become an appendage of the state executive create a enact a law and then just sack an entire local Democratic democratically elected local government and then put in place ke committee under the guise of oh we are we are not able to conduct elections.

 Now section 135 of the Constitution only talks about where it is impr practicable to conduct election and that's even at the national level not even at the state level and where it is practicable and Nigeria is at War there is no State in Nigeria where you you we do not conduct national election so I see no reason why we can't conduct local government election in all of the state even if the at least let's pretend to have an election Delta state is conducting election tomorrow Saturday River state has said they would conduct theirs on um in October and um you know so many other states between October be that committee that would be yes push the states to have democratically elected local government officials at the state level otherwise let the federal government keep this fund at a pool an account an interest heing account until the states are able to conduct local government election.

And you see, because of this, that's why Dr. Biti was very precise today when he was even saying to the President, you too were part of this all this while, and why was he asking? But anyway, I was making a defense of the President, that you know, any day a person wakes up in the morning, you know. So, I know tongue in trees, sorry Qui, if the Attorney General was on the other side. The Attorney General was on the other side. In fact, there's nobody, no Governor that has ever been. All the states in this country at some point were on the other side in this. No politician, everybody had exploited. As long as you were a former Governor in this country, you had exploited this local government one way or the other. But my question will be, apart from even that 197, because we need to look at that 197 because that's the board of conversation here, apart from ensuring that we look at that 197 that conducts the local government election. Because that has always been the case, even when we returned to democracy in '99, local government elections were the first to be conducted in December '98. In fact, Abacha, if my memory serves right, did I think they had, when they were, you know, doing the Great Abacha Rally, before that time, they had even done the local government polls at that period. Yes. So how can we go back to that? That's number one. Secondly, we should now also look at this high-handedness of the Governors. Some people are saying, saying that all the monies, I think Sarup was saying that all the monies that they've taken before, can they reverse that? Can they pay all of that money back? That's one argument of Sarup that might not be possible. The third point would be, there's another case that is going on. I saw now or state three deductions by the federal government that, oo and some other states are now pushing and now saying they're taking the federal government to the Supreme Court as regards that. I mean, can you throw more light on all of that?

You see, first and foremost, on the issue of conducting elections at the local government level, whether we like it or not, we've been pushed to a position where even though we are clamoring for fiscal federalism, restructuring Nigeria, we find that the states, the Governors, those who are superintending Governors at the various state levels have shown clearly to be incapable of conducting credible elections at those levels. It is, we're happy today that the Attorney General, who is the federal Attorney General today, is on this other side, which also shows that lawyers can argue either side. Yes, when he was in private practice, he was one of those that supported this continuous system where the state government would continue to superintend finances meant for local governments. But today, credit to him, and like you said, when a person wakes up, it's not the morning. So we also now need to take it a step further to look at. Yes, we complain about conducting elections, and you know all that we see during the national election, but to a very large extent, it's still far better than what we see at the local government level. What you see at the local government level is not something you can describe as an election process. In some cases, some persons are still waiting for materials to arrive while other places have already sworn in local government officials, council chairmen, and councilors. Now it has become so bad that we don't even reckon with who becomes councilor in our various council areas. All we look out for is who is the chairman. And we need to look at a situation where these elections also will be very important for us.

And then, on the area of deductions, if you look at section 6(3) of the same Constitution, it talks about the allocation of revenue and the net off of deductions from the cost of funds. But also, there are areas where some of these states had collected money from the federal government, not just as grants but as loans. There were bailouts to some of these states. So we need to look at the holistic issues. There are a lot of issues that we need to look at. If we had a situation where the local governments were the ones collecting the revenues and paying taxes to the state, and the state in turn paid taxes to the federal, then we wouldn't have all of these issues of netting off deductions. But you, sorry, quickly though, but you have a federal government that collects 53% or 52% of the entire revenue, where the state and the local government share collectively about 40-something percent. That's where you are having this challenge. What is the job of the federal government to be collecting 52% of the revenue? Sarup says you must pay them back all this money. What do you say about that? It is a practical impossibility, but that does not stop us from going after the money.

Okay, before we go, we're trying to wrap up. We have just about a minute now. You said section 7 will need to be amended. Are there other sections that should be amended? Because, what I said earlier, the ruling by the Supreme Court raises a number of questions. Should we also amend section 162? Should we just abrogate the joint account? And then section 2 of the Constitution does not mention local governments. This is a federation and states and federal capital territory. Should that section 2 of the Constitution also be amended? Because it's only in section 7 that we face local government.

Like I had said, the Constitution, apart from section 7 and the fourth schedule, gives functions to the local government just the way functions of State Houses of Assembly are spelled out, the functions of the Governors are spelled out, the functions of the President are spelled out. There are no functions spelled out for the local government in the Constitution. The local government council, the local government chairman, and all that is left within the purview of the State House of Assembly to create and make laws for, which is why we have the crisis we had in River State. So all of these sections need to be amended to ensure that the duties of the local government are clearly spelled out if we believe that this is the government that is closest to the people. Otherwise, what's the business of the federal government sharing palliative? That should be the business of the local government if we had a local government that is properly structured and defined by the Constitution. Okay, thank you very much. It was a delight to have you here