Former Governor of Ekiti State and ex-Chairman, Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Kayode Fayemi, has described local government autonomy as a misnomer and aberration in a federal system of government.
Fayemi, an academic and a former Nigeria’s Minister of Mines and Steel Development, spoke at the launch of St. Racheal’s People Consulting 2024 Leadership and Economic Summit-1.0 on Thursday night in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the programme had the theme: “Economic Prosperity- Secrets of Audacious Leaders”.
Speaking on how the country could navigate out of its current socio-economic and security challenges, Fayemi said the Federal Government’s suit against state governors and the ruling in its favour was not the solution to the challenges at hand.
“We cannot return to a unitary state. But unfortunately, we are gradually going back to a unitary form of government even though it is being dressed up as restructuring.
“The President (Bola Tinubu) is a federalist, he is a leader in my party, we share quite a lot in common, but I do not know any federal entity anywhere in the world where the federal government becomes the driver of what happens in the local government.
“It does not happen anywhere in the world and the Nigerian Constitution in Section 2 is very clear that Nigeria is a federation of the federal (central government) and the state. It is not three-tier,” he said.
Fayemi, a visiting Professor at the African Leadership Centre, said it was a display of ignorance to describe the local government as the third tier of government.
He added: “The principle of federalism is clear, it is a principle of dual federation units.
“Anywhere in the world where we have federalism, it is the state or province or region either in India, U.S., Canada, or Australia.
“It is now up to the state to determine whether it wants to have 20 counties, or 50 or 200 local authorities based on its own local needs. This is a misnomer, it does not happen anywhere in the world.
“With this latest strategy, I assure you, in the first instance, I don’t see how workable it is; it not going to work.”
He said that if some governors had not done well in the administration of local governments, solutions should be proffered and tamper with what federalism entails.
“This is not the solution, we are unitarising the country instead of decentralising the country.
“If we can address this problem that we have all identified, we will see that Nigeria will be better.
“We cannot solve all the problems from Abuja, particularly the two critical problems of security and energy.
“We need to really drill down to the local level in order to resolve those two problems. If we fix those two problems, electricity and security, Nigeria will fly,” he said.
NAN recalls that the Supreme Court had on July 11 given a ruling granting full autonomy to local governments.
The ruling followed a suit instituted by the Federal Government against the governors of the 36 states of the federation over what it called their interference in the administration of local councils in their respective states.
The suit filed by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, sought full autonomy for all local government councils in the country.
In the suit, the Federal Government specifically prayed the court to issue an order, prohibiting state governors from embarking on unilateral, arbitrary and unlawful dissolution of democratically elected local government leaders.
The suit also asked for an order permitting the funds standing in the credits of local governments to be directly channelled to them from the Federation Account, in line with the provisions of the constitution as against the alleged unlawful joint accounts created by governors.
FG also prayed to the Supreme Court for an order stopping governors from further constituting caretaker committees to run the affairs of local governments as against the constitutionally recognized and guaranteed democratic system.
It equally applied for an order of injunction restraining the governors, their agents and privies from receiving, spending or tampering with funds released from the federation account for the benefit of local governments when no democratically elected local government system is put in place in the states.