FG shouldn’t be involved in LG creation – Oyebode
The Pro-Chancellor of Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Prof. Akin Oyebode, has strongly advocated for a reconfiguration of Nigeria’s federal system, stressing that the Federal Government should have no role in the creation of local governments.
He argued that the power to create local governments should be exclusively vested in the state governments.
Oyebode, a renowned scholar in International Law and Jurisprudence, criticised Nigeria’s federal structure, calling it “a caricature of federalism.”
He proposed that Nigeria restructure its political framework to operate on a two-tier federal system, similar to other federations globally.
In an exclusive interview with The PUNCH on Sunday evening, the professor lamented the lack of autonomy and democratic processes at the local government level, emphasising that local governments, being the closest level of governance to the people, were severely undermined in Nigeria.
He said, “I have a very low estimation of the survival and relevance of the local governments in the scheme of things. To a large extent, the configuration of the local governments in Nigeria has been unhealthy, almost indefensible.
“So, I think Nigeria has to revisit the constitution as to really scrap the enumeration of the local governments and leave creation of local governments to the state governments.
“It is a very unhealthy situation. I don’t know what Nigeria will want to do, it is either we abolish the local government system and just have two tiers like in many federal systems – the federal and the states and then the states can create as many local governments as they want.
“It is an axiom that local governments are the closest levels of government to the people, but what we have in reality is that Abuja is so far away from the local people and the attempt to bring government close to the people has not been altogether successful.”
Oyebode noted that under the present arrangement, only the state governments go to Abuja monthly for FAAC meetings, saying, “The local governments are not represented and so, it is by fiat whatever comes to them. I think it should be the other way round.
“If you want a functional federal system, we should allow it to be restructured so that autonomy will really reside in the state government so that they will become viable. In other words, they have to reconsider the division of powers within the constitution.”
The don also expressed the hope that state governments would devolve more powers to the local governments “so that the local governments could be masters of their own destiny.”
Oyebode also criticised the lopsidedness in the creation of local governments in the northern part of the country at the expense of the southern part.
He said, “When you compare Lagos State with just 20 local governments as per the constitution and Jigawa State, which was created from Kano State having about 44 local governments and Kano State itself, it is really unconscionable what was done in 1976 to create so many local governments in the northern part of Nigeria at the expense of the local government set-up in the South.
“The experience in Nigeria has not been that impressive. Lagos State from 29 local governments created 57, the Olusegun Obasanjo government withheld their allocation, and up till now, they are just local governments on paper and the LCDAs, as they are called, have not been realistic,” he said.
