Olusegun Adeyemo
Former Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has said it is unrealistic to expect local governments in Nigeria to operate independently under the current constitutional framework.
Fashola, who made this known in a statement amid growing calls for local government autonomy, argued that the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution inherently limit the independence of local councils.
According to the former Lagos State Governor, the influence of state houses of assembly and state governments on local councils contradicts the concept of autonomy.
“I think that the debate we must have is whether we really want autonomous local governments. It’s a debate that must be had. As it stands today, it is unrealistic to expect autonomy for local governments created by the Constitution.
“They were not meant to be autonomous; that is my view after a very close reading of certain provisions of the Constitution. Some of those provisions provide, for example, that the local government in its economic activities and all of that will have laws made for it by the state House of Assembly,” he said.
Fashola further noted that land, a critical asset for infrastructure development at the local level, is under the control of state governments, making local councils reliant on state authority.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria also pointed out that issues such as salary and pension defaults for primary healthcare workers and teachers in the early days of democracy in 1999 contributed to the creation of the joint account system between states and councils.
On the Supreme Court ruling that granted financial autonomy to local governments, Fashola said that while no patriot would claim that local governments were functioning optimally, there were still legal questions about whether the apex court’s decision could withstand constitutional scrutiny.
He, however, commended the conduct of council elections as a step towards strengthening the independence of local government administrations.
It will be recalled that in July 2024, the Supreme Court barred governors from dissolving democratically elected local government councils and granted financial autonomy to all local governments in Nigeria.