NYEWUSIRA, VINCENT
PG/Ph.D/03/34094
STATE-LOCAL GOVERNMENT RELATIONS IN RIVERS
STATE, NIGERIA (1999-2007)
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND
LOCAL GOVERNMENT, FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA
NSUKKA
Public Administration and Local Government
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA
2011
Webmaster
Digitally Signed by Webmaster’s Name
DN : CN = Webmaster’s name O= University of Nigeria, Nsukka
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1
STATE-LOCAL GOVERNMENT RELATIONS IN RIVERS STATE,
NIGERIA (1999-2007)
BY
NYEWUSIRA, VINCENT
PG/Ph.D/03/34094
A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY
OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA, IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Ph.D) IN PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR FAB O. ONAH
JANUARY, 2011
2
APPROVAL PAGE
THIS THESIS HAS BEEN APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC
ADMINSITRATION AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES,
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA.
__________________
PROF. FAB O. ONAH
SUPERVISOR
________
DATE
________________
_______
PROF. FAB O. ONAH
DATE
HEAD OF DEPARTMENT.
___________________
PROF. C. O.T. UGWU
FACULTY REP, SPGS
________
DATE
________________
PROF. E. O. EZEANI
DEAN OF FACULTY
____________________
EXTERNAL EXAMINER
_______
DATE
________
DATE
ii
3
CERTIFICATION
NYEWUSIRA
VINCENT,
A
POST
GRADUATE
STUDENT
IN
THE
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT WITH
REGISTRATION NO. PG/Ph.D/03/34094 HAS SATISFACTORILY COMPLETED THE
REQUIREMENT FOR RESEARCH FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Ph.D) IN PUBLIC ADMINSTRATION.
THE RESEARCH WORK EMBODIED IN THIS THESIS IS ORIGINAL AND HAS
NOT BEEN SUBMITTED IN PART OR IN FULL FOR ANY OTHER DEGREE OR
CERTIFICATE OF THIS OR ANY OTHER UNIVERSITY.
________________
NYEWUSIRA, VINCENT
STUDENT
__________________
PROF. FAB O. ONAH
SUPERVISOR
________________
PROF. FAB O. ONAH
HEAD OF DEPARTMENT
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4
DEDICATION
To the memory of my father, Late Mr. Samuel Nna Nyewusira, who gladly deprived
himself the luxuries most of his peers savoured just to give me a good education.
iv
5
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
To the Almighty God, I give all the GLORY, HONOUR and ADORATION for He is
the reason for this season of gratitude. He provided the inspiration, good health and
resources for this work.
I actually lack words to appreciate the commitment of my supervisor and mentor,
Prof. Fab O. Onah to the completion of this work. He is simply God’s instrument of
shaping my academic endeavours. His instructions and suggestions, at every stage,
enabled me develop a proper response to the work. I owe an endless debt of gratitude
to him.
I acknowledge with profound gratitude the immeasurable sacrifices made by my
father, Mr. Samuel Nyewusira (Deceased) and my mother, Mrs. Magdaline Nyewusira
to see me through the various stages of my education. Although my father has returned
to his Maker since January, 2002, I guess he must be ‘smiling’ now because, by the
special Grace of God, he had not laboured in vain.
I have also benefited immensely from the ‘knowledge bank’ of all the lecturers in
the Department of Public Administration & Local Government, University of Nigeria,
Nsukka, of whom Professors F.C. Okoli, Chikelue Ofuebe, Chika Oguonu, R.C. Onah,
Nnanta Elekwa and Dr. C. U. Agalamanya stand out.
My sincere gratitude also go to my beloved wife, Aleruchi and my children,
Homachi and Akachi in a very special way. Their love and affection provided the
conducive environment, in many profound but unexplainable ways, which led to the
completion of my study.
I acknowledge and appreciate my Pastor and Spiritual Father, Pastor David
Ibiyeomie, founding Pastor of Salvation Ministries, Port Harcourt. His inspirational
teachings and counselings, rooted in the word of God, has been a pillar of light in all my
endeavours.
I am immensely grateful to my siblings, Bro. Ben, Hon. Justine, Augustine, Fidelis
and Akelachi for the support and encouragement I received from them all through the
work. My father-in-law and mother-in-law, Sir (Elder) & Lady Stephen N. Wali, have
also been very supportive in their prayers for the divine protection, success and wellbeing of my family. I wish to say ‘Big Thank You’ to them.
6
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Many thanks to my colleagues and friends, both in the Department of Political
Science, Rivers State University of Education, Port Harcourt and in the Doctoral
programme of University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Worthy of mention are Ozy Orluwene, Dr.
Alafuro Epelle, Ken Nweke, Vincent Eremie, Wilson Goddey, Chukwuemeka Gahia,
Chris Akani, Taylor Tamunosaki, Jack Diepreye, Tony Egobueze and late Val Aleke.
The work benefited immensely from my series of interactions with them at various
stages. I am particularly thankful to Mr. Julius Akani of Department of English &
Literature, University of Port Harcourt, for painstakingly editing this work and all my
Doctoral seminars.
I will not also fail to thank Prof. F.O. Okala, Dean of Post Graduate Studies,
Rivers State University of Education, Port Harcourt, for his untiring support, interest and
encouragement while the work lasted. I extend same measure of gratitude to Dr.
Vincent Asuru (Reader) of Guidance & Counselling Department. Mr. Obed Wosu was
of immense financial assistance to me at a critical stage of my study. It is impossible to
mention all my friends, colleagues, cousins, in-laws and students who assisted me in
one form or the other in the course of this work. Only God knows and can reward them
richly.
Finally, I wish to express my deep appreciation to all interviewees who offered
information I found very useful. It would be most improper to mention their names here,
but they all share in the credit of the work.
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ABSTRACT
This study attempted to investigate the legal, political, administrative and fiscal
relationship between two levels of government in Nigeria’s federal practice under a
democratic dispensation. The investigation was informed by the fact that the
management of intergovernmental relations, especially state-local government
relations, is among the most contested issues in the 1999 Constitution. The contention
is made more complex by the letters of the Constitution which makes the institution of
local government, especially its establishments, structure, composition, finance and
functions, a residual matter for state government. Applying the Structural-Functional
Approach and Theory of Federalism, the study explored the relationship between the
state and local government councils, and how this affected the survival, independence,
functions and conditions of existence of both tiers in a federal structure that is subsystem dominant. The methodology for the study covers both the primary and
secondary sources of data collection. The analysis of primary data, elicited through
interviews, was mainly descriptive and qualitative. Content analysis was used in the
interpretation of secondary data. On the basis of data presented and analyzed, the
following findings were made; the constitutional and legal framework guiding state-local
government relations is not only skewed in favour of the state, it completely subjugates
the institution of local government to the state government. Secondly, state institutions,
agencies and commissions are used by the state government to exercise stringent
control over local government functionaries. Thirdly, the provision for ‘Joint Account’
between the state and local government councils is a huge impediment on financial
autonomy of local government councils. We concluded that the modus operandi of
intergovernmental relations in Rivers State instituted a system of local administration
rather than local government. This is because the existing structures vitiate, in various
dimensions, the institution of local government. Among other recommendations, we
advocate attitudinal change in the behaviour and conduct of those who operate the
institutions of government at both state and local government levels. This could be
some sort of ‘elixir’ to the problems of state-local government relations in particular and
intergovernmental relations in general.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page
Approval Page
Certification
Dedication
Acknowledgement
Abstract
Table of contents
List of tables
CHAPTER ONE – INTRODUCTION
ii
iii
iv
v
vii
viii
x
1.1
Background to the Study
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1
1.2
Statement of the Problem
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1.3
Objectives of the Study -
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1.4
Significance of the Study -
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1.5
Scope and Limitations of the Study
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1.5.1 Scope
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1.5.2 Limitations -
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CHAPTER TWO – LITERATURE REVIEW AND STUDY AREA
2.1
Literature Review -
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15
2.1.1 Conceptualizing Intergovernmental Relations
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15
2.1.2 The Constitution and Management of Intergovernmental Relations- 28
2.1.3 State-Local Government Relations under the 1999 Constitution-
38
2.1.4 Review of Rivers State Local Government Law
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42
2.1.5 Synthesis of the Literature
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48
2.2
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49
2.2.1 Application of Theoretical Framework -
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58
2.3
Hypotheses -
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59
2.4
Operationalisation of Key Concepts -
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59
2.5
The Study Area
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2.5.1 History and Geography of Rivers State
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60
2.5.2 Peoples and Culture of Rivers State -
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62
2.5.3 The Economy of Rivers State -
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Theoretical Framework -
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viii
CHAPTER THREE – METHODOLOGY
3.1
Method of Study
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3.1.2 Method of Data Presentation and Analysis -
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3.1.1 Sources and Method of Data Collection
CHAPTER FOUR – DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
4.1
The relationship between provisions of the 1999 Constitution and the Rivers
State Local Government Law and the status of the State and
Local Government Councils as tiers of Government
4.2
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75
The extent of control and manipulation of the Administrative Structure of Local
Government Councils by the State Government- -
4.3
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79
Administration of State Joint Local Government Account and Financial Autonomy
of the Local Government Councils
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87
CHAPTER FIVE – SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
5.1
The Effect of 1999 Constitution and Rivers State Local Government
Law on the status of the State and Local Governments as tiers of Government
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5.2
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105
The control and manipulation of the administrative structure of Local Government
Councils by the State Government.
5.3
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120
Implications of State Joint Local Government Account on the financial autonomy
of Local Government Councils -
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130
CHAPTER SIX – SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
6.1
Summary
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137
6.2
Recommendations-
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6.3
Conclusion -
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Bibliography
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Appendix
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.1: State Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and 10% of State Share
to Selected Local Government Councils (2000-2005)
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95
Table 4.2: Federal Allocations to Selected Local Government Councils
and Actual Receipt after Joint Account Allocation Committee
(JAAC) Sessions (2000 – 2005)
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- 98
Table 4.3: Approved Estimates (Budgets) of selected Local Government Councils and
Actual Receipts after Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) sessions
(2004-2006).
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x
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background to the Study
The study of federalism usually revolves around power and its allocation between
two or more levels of government. It is predicated upon the existence of a society
composed of various geographically segregated groups divided by wide fundamental
differences of race, religion, language, culture and economies. Its purpose is to enable
each group or level of government to be free from interference or control of others, to
govern itself in matters of local concern, leaving matters of common interest to be
managed centrally and those which are of both local and national concern to be
administered concurrently (Sagay, 2008). The outcome of interactions, co-operations
and inter-dependence in terms of claims, resources and the scope of political action
between levels of government is conceptualized in the theory of public administration
as intergovernmental relations (Alapiki & Odondiri 1995:19). This presupposes that
every tier of government retains functional, fiscal, legal and administrative relations or
interactions with other tiers.
The legal and constitutional consequence of intergovernmental relations is
encapsulated in Nwabueze’s definition of federalism. It reads in part as presented by
Sagay (2008:71):
By the doctrine of federalism, which Nigeria has adopted,
the autonomy of each government, which presupposes its
separate existence and its independence from the control
of other government … is essential to federal arrangement.
Therefore, each government exists not as an appendage of
another government but as autonomous entity in the sense
of being able to exercise its own freewill in the conduct of
its affairs, free from direction by another government.
12
In describing the federal principle, Sagay made it clear that the federal government, like
the states and local governments operate directly upon the people, and that each level
is limited to its own sphere and within that sphere, is independent of the other levels of
government. Nworgu (2006:14) also argues that it is a trite point that within its spheres
of constitutional authority, each tier of government in the federation is supreme and
does not answer to another tier, noting that anything contrary will be ‘an abridgement of
the federal spirit’.
Intergovernmental relations in Nigeria are defined, to a large extent, in the 1999
Constitution. The Constitution prescribes and recognizes three levels of government: a
federal, states and local governments. Each of these levels has its sphere of influence
and functional competence.
The federal government has exclusive constitutional
responsibility for some functional subjects under the ‘Exclusive Legislative List’ as spelt
out in Part 1 of the Second Schedule of the Constitution.
Part II of the Second
Schedule contains the Concurrent List over which both the federal and state
governments have concurrent powers. The Fourth Schedule of the same Constitution
outlined the functions of local governments.
In our study, intergovernmental relations is restricted to state-local relations. The
states and local governments constitute the hub of economic development and centres
for the provision of social amenities and infrastructure (Ibodje, 2000). From the
constitutional importance accorded the local governments as the third tier government,
it may not be an overstatement that the local governments are as important as the
states and federal government.
In fact, Kingdom (1991:478) is of the view that
throughout history, it is in local rather than central government that ordinary people
13
have encountered the reality of the state. He opines that local governments are multifunctional and provide most of the state’s services required by ordinary people from ‘the
womb to the tomb’. He also asserts that local government is found in virtually all
developed states as a complement to central government and is generally seen as ‘a
sign of a healthy democracy’ and ‘a mark of pluralism’. This stems from the fact that
some degree of autonomy given to local governments fragments the power of the state
and introduces ‘elements of balancing power’.
The emergence of states as a level of government in Nigeria is traceable to the
replacement of the four-region structure with a twelve-state system in 1967 by the
military administration of General Yakubu Gowon. The replacement of the regional
system with a multi-state federal system was borne out of political rather than
administrative expediency (Fidelis, 2002).
Federalism under the regional structure
engendered instability because of certain pitfalls that characterized its operation.
Prominent among these factors, as noted by Alapiki & Odondiri (1995:22), was
‘intersegmental imbalance and structural asymmetry’. This had to do, essentially, with
the disproportionate size and population of the Northern region compared to the other
regions of the federation. The structural anomaly created the fear, real or perceived, of
domination of the whole country by the North. Babangida (2003) in Achi (2004:15)
captures it more aptly when he declared that;
Ethnic nationalism has historically been part and parcel of
the political process, economy and statecraft of Nigeria. It
gave rise to the colonial investigatory committee usually
referred to as the Willink Commission, which became the
precursor of the multiple creations of sub-system state in
the country between 1963 and 1996.
14
Therefore, state creation was informed more by the conviction of General Yakubu
Gowon that without a definite commitment to the ‘state question’ normalcy and freedom
from fear of domination of one or more regions cannot be achieved (Elaigwu 1986:87).
This fear of domination is corroborated by Suberu (1995:22) in the view that state
creation exercise not only gave satisfaction to sub-ethnic agitations for statehood status
within the majority groups, its primary rationale was to ‘liberate the minorities from the
regional stranglehold of the ethnic majority groups’. The 1967, 1976,1987, 1991 and
1996 state creation exercises by various military administration gave Nigeria a thirty-six
state structure.
We have established here that the creation of states in Nigeria,
implicitly or explicitly was not designed as a tier of government to catalyze social and
economic development but a cardinal desideratum of political stability in a
heterogeneous society.
The evolution of local government system, on the other hand, followed what
Shekarau (2005:54) describes as ‘arduous process’. It was a process replete with
series of reforms. These include the reforms of 1950, 1952 and 1954 which resulted in
the emergence of the 1954 Native Authority Law. Others were the 1962, 1966, 1971
and 1976 reforms which brought about uniformity in the system of local government
administration in the country.
The 1976 reforms specifically designated local
governments as third tier government. It also laid the foundation for the constitutional
and legal basis for Nigerian local governments, with clearly defined responsibilities,
powers and functions. They were also made to share statutory allocations of revenues
with the two others higher tiers: the states and federal government. More reforms were
introduced in 1984, 1989 and 1991. In the course of these latest reforms, more local
15
government areas were created reaching a total of 774 that is listed in the 1999
Constitution. Presidentialism was also introduced at the local government level. These
reforms were aimed at evolving a system of administration at the local level which could
be efficient in service delivery and bring about ‘bottom-up’ approach to development.
This tends to take into account the views of the local people in the process of policy
formulation and implementation (Shekarau 2005, Ibodje 2000).
Local government, indeed, evolved from the concept that participatory political
and socio-economic development from the grassroots up, and loosening of
bureaucratic hierarchies in the service of this end, were not only possible, but essential
(Habeson 2002:95). Similarly, Akinola (2004:47) posits that local governments are the
most relevant tier of government to the local people since it is the closest to the
grassroots. He also maintains that local governments are ‘designed to be centrifugal
points of socio-economic emancipation and welfare propagation for the citizens’. Thus,
from the era of Native Authority system in the colonial period, the local government has
evolved into a third tier government, with constitutional provisions ensuring its existence
and the election of its officials through democratic process. Fidelis (2002:109) sums up
the evolution of local government in Nigeria in the remarks that ‘the character of the
present local government system is a product of history and socio-economic system’.
From the foregoing, it is clear that the emergence or evolution of states and local
governments, as tiers of government, differ remarkably in terms of political and socioeconomic persuasions.
The convergence, however, is that the two levels of
governments, as presently structured, were created and proliferated by successive
military regimes. Olaoye (1998:141) restates this view when he said, ‘whether by
16
coincidence or design, history shows that the creation of states and local government
areas in Nigeria have almost been the exclusive preserve of the military’. Although
Abdulsalami (1998:75) argues that the tradition of local authority in Nigeria is much
older than those of the states and federal government, the modern system of local and
state government structure is essentially a creation of post-colonial military institutions.
In the light of the above, the study considers the character and the content of the
distribution of powers between Rivers State Government and Local Government
Councils. This is to determine whether or not the structure and process of transaction
and interaction between the second and third tier of government in Nigeria’s federal
experiment is co-operative or repressive.
1.2
Statement of the Problem
The 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and its management of
intergovernmental relations, especially state-local relations, is among the most
contested issues in social and political discourse.
As Ozor (2003) observes, the
structure and management of state-local relations has become a dominant issue on the
changing nature of federalism in Nigeria, especially in the context of the development of
the Nigerian state. In fact, issues of intergovernmental relations, whether federal-state,
federal-local,
inter-state,
state-local
or
inter-local,
have
become
increasingly
controversial since the return to civil rule in May, 1999. Hence, Roberts (1999:57) is of
the view that the ‘stability of the Fourth Republic could be consolidated or compromised
depending on the dynamics of intergovernmental relations’.
Academics, politicians, judges, political analysts, the media, and members of civil
social organizations have made various contributions to the resolution of this
17
controversy.
This is not surprising given the notion of Orugbani (2001) that
intergovernmental relation is central to the success of all federal systems. As a matter
of fact, Onah (2004:1) sees intergovernmental relations as ‘a necessary process and
component of a federal system’, which is germane to the ‘survival of all tiers of
government’.
Of all the levels of intergovernmental relations that are in operation in Nigeria’s
federal practice, state-local relation is the most contentious (Ola & Tonwe, 2005). This
is probably so considering the fact that every part of the country, whether urban or
rural, falls into a local government area. In fact, local governments in the words of Wali
(2008:20), provides ‘one of the most important theatre of politics in Nigeria today’. The
contention is made more complex by the letters of the constitution which make the
institution of local governments in Nigeria, particularly its creation and control, a
residual matter for state governments (Chukwuemeka & Uche, 2005).
In the same vein, there is also the failure of the constitution to articulate a clear
line of authorities to both the state and local authorities, and the continuing debate over
the involvement of state governments in distributing local government allocation from
the Federation Account. A related flaw is that while the functions of local governments
are specified in the Fourth Schedule, local governments can only exercise their
authority in accordance with enabling legislation passed by the states. Depending on
the specifics of the legislation, which varies from state to state, local governments may
be subject to varying degrees of state government oversight, influence and control
(Barkan et al, 2001:19). The inconsistencies and contradictions which have become
the hallmark of the 1999 Constitution are again brought to the fore by Soyombo
18
(2004:65) in the remarks that ‘the same document that reposes responsibility of
creating local government in a state’s legislature also confers the powers of ratification
on the National Assembly, whose duty it is to appropriate money for such councils’.
The workability of this arrangement in the Nigerian political community, where ethnicity
appears to be an institutionalized factor in policy consideration remains a puzzle. This
is, perhaps, why many people think that intergovernmental relations in Nigeria is
immersed in what President Barack Obama of United States of America refers to as
‘failed politics and failed policies’.
The devolution of powers and the granting of autonomous status for each tier of
government in a federal constitution is intended to act as bulwark against undue
interference in the affairs of lower levels of government. This is why Amadi (2004:17)
agrees that the practice of federalism, as framework of governance, implies that
different levels of government have their allocated powers and responsibilities, and that
none should encroach on the sphere of influence of the other, directly or indirectly
undermines these powers and functions. Similarly, Madunagu (1999:41) opines that in
a federal structure, each level of government should directly operate on the people
through its own institutions and department, and not through the institutions or
departments of the other levels. Several works on intergovernmental relations agree
with these basic formulations. But it seems that the true sense of devolution of powers
between levels of government, especially between states and local governments in
Nigeria is yet to be properly understood and defined. In other words, there is less
consideration on what the practice of state-local government relations mean for socioeconomic and political development in Nigeria.
19
There is little doubt that the evolution of Nigerian federalism through various
constitutional experiments and administrative designs, including those carried out
during military rule, have failed to provide a sustainable solution to the problems of
‘deformed’ intergovernmental relations. For instance, the issues of revenue rights, fiscal
jurisdiction, government bureaucracies, policy preferences, statutory claims and
autonomy have remained the most dominant and contentious issues in the relationship
between local government councils and Rivers State Government since the return to
civil rule in 1999.
Many are now questioning the capacity of the constitution to
modulate the functions and powers of both the Rivers State Government and Local
Government Councils. The matter is not helped by the perception and character of
public officers entrusted with the responsibilities of operating governmental institutions
at both the state and local governments. There seem to be a poor understanding of
what state-local co-operation and interaction stand for in a federation. In fact,
Omotoriomwan (2006:16) remarks that state-local government relations in Nigeria
‘presents a complex matrix’.
It is against this background that this study examines the key components of
intergovernmental relations between the Rivers State government and the twenty-three
local government councils. This is with a view to understanding the balance of power,
resources, authority, actions, roles, influence and control between the two levels of
governments.
More importantly, emphasis is placed on evaluating institutions and
mechanisms for the management and regulations of tensions, strains and conflicts
inherent in relations between Rivers State Government and Local Government
Councils.
This is more compelling when we consider the submission of Gboyega
20
(1987:1) that ‘the structure, composition and functions of local governments are
influenced by the political beliefs of those who have the authority and responsibility for
determining the main features of the local government system’. This ‘authority and
responsibility’, from the provisions of the 1999 Constitution, in section 7 (1), is assigned
to state governments. Hence, the focus on state-local government relations. In order
to achieve this, we attempt to explore the following questions;
(i)
How do the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and the Rivers State Local
Government Law affect the status of the State Government and Local
Government Councils as tiers of government?
(ii)
Is the administrative structure of Local Government Councils subject to or
insulated from the control and manipulations of the State Government?
(iii)
Does the administration of State Joint Local Government Account enhance or
impede the financial autonomy of both the State Government and Local
Government Councils?
1.3
Objectives of the Study
The General objective of the study is to examine the legal, fiscal, administrative
and political relationship that exists between Rivers State Government and the Local
Government Councils in a democratic dispensation.
The specific objectives of this study include, to:
(i)
Determine the effects of the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and the
Rivers State Local Government Law on the status of both the State
Government and Local Government Councils as tiers of government.
21
(ii)
Find out if the administrative structures of Local Government Councils are
subject to or insulated from the control and manipulations of the State
Government.
(iii)
Ascertain the implications of State Joint Local Government Account on the
financial autonomy of Local Government Councils.
1.4
Significance of the Study
Intergovernmental relation is the underlying theme of this study.
There is,
therefore, no doubt that our study will help provide the valuable insight into the complex
dimensions of state-local government relations. The study is particularly intended to
examine principles and practices that might be useful to Nigeria in its challenging task
of exploring how intergovernmental relations in any of its various manifestations may be
relevant to the structure of governance in a democracy. The study also summarizes
the salient theoretical issues in state-local relations and highlights how these issues
featured in the political process in Rivers State between 1999 and 2007. The aim is to
establish the dominant trend in the balance of power and resources between the Rivers
State Government and Local Government Councils. By these efforts, the study forms
the empirical base against which the changes in state-local government relations under
a democratic regime are assessed in future studies.
The study revolves around formal structures of powers, roles and relationships
guiding the operation of the second and third tiers of government in Nigeria’s
intergovernmental practice. In fact, an understanding of state-local relations, as this
study provides, is essential for public administrators, policy-makers, judicial officers,
and academics, since the subject defines the scope and territory of the administrative
22
world in which they live and operate.
As Wobodo (2005:16) affirmed, the
understanding of intergovernmental administration is ‘indispensable to any country’s
quest for socio-economic and political development’. Again, it is not just a question of
territorial boundaries. It is, more importantly, a question of functional allocations as
most countries, including Nigeria, have a constitutional framework that determines
federal, state and local issues, and make allocation of powers and functions in diverse
ways to the different levels of governments. The allocation and the question of who
does what and with what resources, in a country with ethno-political complexity, is in
the main, the theoretical significance of our study.
The empirical significance of this study is that the subject is necessary at this
time in Nigeria’s political history when various institutions, interest groups, civil society
organizations and the media are articulating viable options that will make Nigeria’s
democratic practice more enduring and people-oriented. The study would certainly be
a reference material and of interest to institutions and persons involved in the process
of improving what Ojo Maduekwe refers to as ‘Nigeria’s constitutional infrastructure’
through the proposed constitutional amendment exercise.
We also attempt to present the concept of state-local relations in a context of
empirical discussion of its merits, problems, difficulties and strengths. The essence is
to generate ideas on how the institutions of intergovernmental relations can develop.
Therefore, the thrust of our study has been to move the discussion of state-local
relations beyond the general recognition of its complexity towards identifying
institutional reforms for tackling weaknesses in intergovernmental management. It is
23
our hope that this study will be of value as much to scholarship as to political
practitioners in Nigeria’s federal practice.
1.5
Scope and Limitations of the Study
1.5.1 Scope
This study is a case study of a level of intergovernmental relations in one state of
Nigeria’s federation. The study covers the period 1999 to 2007.
The period is
associated with years of uninterrupted civil and constitutional rule with presidential
system of government adopted at all levels. The study covers all forms of fiscal,
administrative, legal and political relationships between the Rivers State government
and the twenty-three (23) local government councils.
1.5.2 Limitations
Although this study is intended to be comprehensive, there were, however, a
number of problems we encountered. The first was that the recurrent spate of violence
and insecurity, and the prevalence of militia groups in Rivers State, especially in the
riverine areas, constrained our going to such violence-prone areas to conduct
interviews. To overcome this problems, we limited our interviewees in some local
government areas to people we were able to reach within the premises of the council
Headquarters.
We also encountered low level of co-operation from Rivers State Ministry of
Finance, Ministry of Local Government, Office of the Special Adviser to the Governor
on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Rivers State House of Assembly
Committee on Local Governments and Office of the Treasurers in Local Governments,
especially from officers and staff directly in charge of disbursing and receiving funds
24
credited to State Joint Local Government Account. This was not unexpected as most
public organizations view any request for information on financial records as divulging
matters that are ‘strictly confidential’. We, however, assured such persons and offices
that all information obtained will be treated in strict confidence, and used only for the
purposes of the research work. We also explored and took advantage of our personal
relationships with high ranking officers of Rivers State government and some local
government councils to minimize this difficulty.
Finally, the non-passage of Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill is a huge constrain
to this study. The proposed Legislation contains Sections that seek to grant free and
unfettered access to information from government institutions, ministries, agencies and
departments. According to Dabiri (2009:100), it is a bill that guarantees every Nigerian
the ‘right to know and be accessible to public information’. Civil society organizations,
pro-democracy groups and the media are of the view that the bill will promote
accountability and transparency in governance. There is no gainsaying the fact that the
Freedom of Information Bill will also strengthen the capacity for collection of data and
research at all levels. In our opinion, the FOI Bill is more of an ‘academic and research
bill’ than a ‘media bill’, considering the challenges researchers encounter in the course
of seeking information from public institutions.
Regrettably, neither the National
Assembly nor the Presidency has demonstrated the political will at passing or signing
the bill into law since its presentation in October, 1999. We therefore consider our
inability to access information freely, through the instrumentality of Freedom of
Information (FOI) Law, as the greatest constraint to the study. In spite of this and other
constraints, the objectives set out in the study were largely achieved.
25
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW AND STUDY AREA
2.1
Literature Review
In this section, we shall attempt to locate our research within the mainstream of
previous related studies. This is in recognition of the fact that it is important to know
what had been written before so that we can make a useful contribution to a further
understanding of the research problem. The exercise will involve the exposition and
critique of existing ideas in the area of federalism, intergovernmental relations,
constitutional framework and Rivers State Local Government Laws. This will not only
form the foundation but also provide justification for the entire study.
2.1.1 Conceptualizing Intergovernmental Relations
The concept of intergovernmental relations was first conceived and developed by
United States of America, who are also credited with the origin and design of federalism
as a system of government (Okafor, 2007:17). Over the years, the concept has been
examined by various scholars and practitioners of repute within most polities of the
world by ways of scholarship and policy initiatives.
The root of intergovernmental
relations is located within the definitional elucidation of the concept of federalism as ‘the
allocation of political power between levels of government of a society’ (Oyovbaire:
1985). This is, probably, why Roberts (1999:59) thinks that federalism is an ‘orienting
idea’ for the concept of intergovernmental relations.
Federalism, as a concept, has no universally accepted definition.
Like most
writers, we begin our treatise on federalism with the work of the leading scholar on the
subject, Kenneth .C Wheare.
Wheare (1963) conceptualized federalism or federal
26
government as ‘the method of dividing powers so that general and regional
governments are each, within a sphere, coordinate and independent’.
He viewed
federal government as a constitutional arrangement that makes for the divisions of
powers and functions between two levels of government. The distinctive feature of a
federal system, according to Wheare (1963:2) is:
… an association of states so organized that powers are
divided between a general government, which in certain
matters … is independent of the government of the
associated states, and, on the other hand, state
governments which in certain matters are, in their turn,
independent of the general government.
This definition contains the defining characteristics or principles of federalism. These
are;
(i)
Division of powers between two levels of government.
(ii)
Coordinate supremacy of the two levels of government: no level of government is
superior or inferior to the other.
(iii)
A written constitution or document reflecting this arrangement.
Wheare added that any system of government that does not conform to the above
principles has no claim to call itself ‘federal’. In his words;
I put forward uncompromising by a criterion of federal
government – the delimited and coordinate division of
governmental functions – and I have implied that the extent
to which any system of government does not conform to
this criterion, it has no claim to call itself federal.
In a ‘true federalism’, according to Wheare (1953) in Oyorbaire (1985:60), neither
level of government must be in a position ‘to over-ride the terms of their agreement
about power and status which each is to enjoy’.
Discussing the pre-requisites of
27
federalism, Wheare added that both the federal and state governments ‘must possess
sufficient economic resources’. This suggests that each level of government should
have adequate resources to perform its functions without depending on the other level
of government for financial assistance. He emphasized this when he wrote that;
Financial subordination marks an end of federalism in fact,
no matter how carefully the legal forms may be preserved.
It follows therefore that both state and federal authorities in
a federation must be given the power in the constitution,
each to have access to and to control; its own sufficient
financial resources. Each must have a power to tax and to
borrow for the financing of its own services by itself.
By this declaration, it is not enough that the federal government should be able to
finance itself; it is also imperative that the state governments should be able to do
likewise.
Oyovbaire (1985:60) captures five key factors that constitute the essence of
Wheare’s conventional federalism as follows;
i)
immutability of the federal units
ii)
independent policy-making powers of each level of government
iii)
non-encroachment in each other’s sphere of policy-making
iv)
fiscal autonomy
v)
Independent administrative machinery.
This basic formulation of federalism is drawn from the United Stats of America which is
regarded by Kenneth Wheare as the archetype of federal government. However, a
number of scholars such as William Riker (1975), Carl Friedrich (1968) and William
Livingstone (1952) in Jinadu (1979) have criticized Wheare’s formulation for its over-
28
emphasis on legal and constitutional provisions; for being rigid; for using only the
United States of America as a model or paradigm of federal government.
The above criticisms notwithstanding, it is generally suggested that Wheare’s
formulation of ‘the federal principle’ is, perhaps, the most clearly expressed definition
and all the other formulations by different scholars are modifications of Wheare’s thesis
about the formal division of power between levels of government. Accordingly, Awa
(1976:6) contends as follows; ‘The essence of the federal system is that national
government on the one hand and the state government on the other hand is
autonomous in their respective spheres’. Awa further posits that the central government
and the states relate with each other on equal terms based on constitutional provisions.
The point to note here is that the convergence in the views of Wheare and Awa affirms
the observation of Jinadu (1979:15) that in spite of the variety of meanings given to
federalism, there is a remarkable similarity in attempts by various writers to
conceptualize the term.
Along this line, federalism could be taken to mean a system of government
where powers and functions are divided among tiers of government (Akindele and
Olaopa 2002, Idoniboye-Obu 2004).
This division, according to Ekwulu (2006) is
usually done to enhance the government’s effective provision of public goods and
services at different levels to the citizens. Secondly, federalism requires a diffusion of
powers to ‘accelerate growth rates within the polity’. Thus, as Ekwulu (2006:11) noted;
There are surely strong reasons, in principle, to believe that
policies formulated for the provision of infrastructure and
even human capital that are sensitive to national or local
conditions are likely to be more effective in encouraging
economic development than centrally determined policies
that ignore these geographical differences.
29
Three basic assumptions are made by the theses of Oyovbaire (1985), Akindele and
Olaopa (2002), Idoniboy-Obu (2004) and Ekwulu (2006) on the outcome of interaction
as expressed in the political actions of governmental levels. Firstly, that the levels of
government have political and administrative activities to perform. Secondly, that
political and administrative ‘output’ is determined by, and dependent upon, relative
freedom of different levels of government, that is, latitude for political initiatives and
judgment. And thirdly, that freedom to perform is itself dependent upon the resources
available to each level from the process of interaction.
Onah (2007:103), on his part, opines that federalism implies both exclusivity and
inter-dependence among the different levels of government. This simply means that
even if the different levels are separate, they must also relate among themselves in the
process of carrying out the task of governance. He further argues that exclusivity
emphasizes separateness, and this is determined by the boundaries of powers
allocated to the different levels by the constitution and the amount of resources
available to each level of government. Onah concludes that ‘inter-dependence gives
rise to what is termed intergovernmental relations’.
There are fundamental questions, posed by extant literature, concerning the
structure of intergovernmental relations. These include; which level of government will
have overriding responsibility for what functions? When functions are shared between
levels of government, how will each function be divided among three tiers of
government (federal, state and local)?
Should the taxes needed to finance local
government be raised by the government that is to spend them, or by the higher level of
30
government? Shafritz and Russel (1997:153) attempted to provide classical answers in
these words;
Some of these questions are answered by the very nature
of a federal system.
For example, only a national
legislature can establish policies of redistribution. Others
are answered by the structure of intergovernmental
relations created over time by a multiple of laws, court
precedents, and traditional political expediency.
These questions underscore the complex nature of intergovernmental relations. It is
not simply a question of dividing functions among levels of government; of assigning
local issues to local government and national issues to the federal government. As
Ekwulu (2006) observed, the majority of issues have federal, state and local
implications.
Saunders (1984) in Kingdom (1991:480) in his ‘dual state thesis’, associates two
levels of government with two key functions of the capitalist state; investment functions
and collective consumption functions. Central government is concerned with providing
investment that will catalyze the growth of the economy, while the local government
provides essential services of housing, education, environmental protection, recreation
among others. The view of Saunder differs remarkably with that of Amadi (2004). The
latter thinks that a developmental state requires co-ordination and central oversight.
The co-ordination, oversight and coherence require that the higher tier of government
‘intrude’ into the domain of the economic management of the lower tier. But this raises
concern about the dictatorship of the higher tier of government. An important lesson of
the ‘dual state thesis’ is the precept that local governments ultimately require reciprocal
initiative on the part of the central government for its sustainability. Beyond making
local government sustainable, central governments needed, in most cases, to
31
accomplish structural and fundamental policy changes in order to make the provision of
‘essential services’ by local governments more effective (Harbeson 2001:95).
Intergovernmental relation is made more complex with the image of federalism
as ‘a marble-cake’ rather than a ‘layer-cake’ structure. The metaphor of ‘marble-cake’
holds the view that the co-operative relations among the varying levels of government
result in an ‘intermingling of activities, in contrast to the more traditional view of layercake federalism, which holds that the three levels of government are totally or almost
totally separate’ (Shafritz & Russel 1997:153). This is the notion that national, state
and local governments are cooperating, interacting agents, jointly working to solve
common problems, rather than conflicting, sometimes hostile competitors, pursuing
similar or conflicting ends. In simple terms, ‘layer-cake’ federalism is conflictual, while
‘marble-cake’ federalism is co-operative. ‘Marble-cake’ federalism affirms the thesis of
Sarkaria (1991) in Elaigwu (2000:41) that;
The classical concept of federation which envisaged two
(or more) parallel government of coordinate jurisdiction,
operating in isolation from each other in watertight
compartments, is no where a functional reality now … By
the middle of the twentieth century, federalism had come to
be understood as dynamic process of cooperation and
shared action between two or more levels of government,
with increasing interdependence.
Complementarity’s between levels of governments is reinforced in the argument
of Nicholas (2006:379) that ‘domestic public policy is implemented not merely by
government, but by governments’. This is so considering that the administration of
most public policies often involve ‘a pastiche of funding sources and public
administrators’ interacting through all levels of government.
Nicholas traced
intergovernmental administration in the United States of America to the 1930s when the
32
nation, states and localities faced up to the challenges of not only Economic
Depression, but later those of World War II and the Cold War as ‘an intergovernmental
team’ in consonance with the spirit of federalism. He therefore aptly defines
intergovernmental relations as ‘the series of financial, legal, political and administrative
relationships established among all units of government and posses varying degrees of
authority and jurisdictional autonomy’. In an attempt to improve on this definition by
making it more precise, Ogbunna (1996:350) defined it as ‘the complex pattern of
interaction, cooperation and inter-dependence between two or more levels of
governments’. On his part, Onah (2005:5) captures the concept of intergovernmental
relations as ‘the structure and process of transaction among levels of government in a
political system’.
These three definitions go to show that the scope of intergovernmental relation
could cover all aspects of government and governance at different levels.
As
Nwanegbo (2007:4) submitted, intergovernmental relations has to do with how different
levels of government relate with each other ‘in policy making and in policy programming
and implementation’. It actually involves ‘the gamut of activities of interactions’ that
take place between the different levels of government within a state (Robert, 1999). In
many federations, the areas of formal intergovernmental relation include matters of
concurrent jurisdiction and the issue of conflict resolution and policy coordination
(Onah, 2007:115). The inference here is that intergovernmental relation involves the
management and coordination of the relationship among governments for the purposes
of achieving policy objectives.
It contrasts sharply with the idea of ‘layer-cake’
federalism wherein tiers of government stuck to ‘their very separate knitting in their very
33
separate’ spheres of constitutional authority. However, it must be emphasized that,
whether we are confronted with ‘marble-cake’ or ‘layer-cake’ model, federalism remains
a mechanism for managing conflicts between levels of government (Elaigwu, 2000:42).
Again, the different models represent various developmental era in intergovernmental
relations as exemplified in the United States of America (Okafor 2007:17).
While
admitting that the institutionalization of intergovernmental relations is generally
developed within federations, Okafor (2007:28) identified six common levels of
intergovernmental relations that represent ‘the structure of decision making’. They are;
central/federal-state relations; central/federal-state-local relations; central/federal-local
relations; state-local relations; inter-local relations; federal-centred relations.
Empirical evidence as typified by constant rift over revenues, powers and
functions between levels of governments suggest that intergovernmental relations is
more conflictual than co-operative (Ochijenu 1999:36). Jonah (2007:65) uses the
Nigerian intergovernmental experience to demonstrate ‘the endless struggle for power
between Federal Government and the 36 states on the one hand, and the state
governments and the 774 local governments on the other’. Therefore, the submission
of Ekwulu (2006:15) that all intergovernmental relations thrives on the principles of
cooperation, collaboration, coordination, harmonization, inter-dependence and unity of
purpose need to be reconsidered, or perhaps, refashioned to incorporate a principle of
conflict and its management between tiers of government. Conflict, as observed by
Elaigwu (2000:40) is ‘the spice of every state; it tests the fragility or strength of the
state’.
34
Gahia (2008) is of the view that conflict emerges whenever a party perceives that
one or more of its goals or purposes, for means of achieving a goal or preference, is
being threatened or hindered by the activities of one or more parties. Conflicts, viewed
then in the sense of visible incompatibility of the policies and interests of the different
sub-units of government, can easily become a feature of intergovernmental relations.
In other words, divergent interests based on competition for power and resources may
be a predisposing factor for conflicts among political actors in intergovernmental
relations. As a matter of fact, Gelb, et al (2007:46) admits that competition has been a
hallmark of East Asian Development, not only among firms but also among national
and local governments vying for investment and seeking to overtake competing
jurisdiction. Hence, inevitability of conflict in intergovernmental relations and the need
for communication is underscored by Herman (1999) in Ezeani (2004:167) in the
following terms, ‘no matter how carefully the powers and responsibilities of each
government are specified, it is inevitable that there will be areas of overlap, and the
actions of one will affect other governments’. Inescapably, there arises a degree of
conflict over which level of government ‘get what, when and how’. In fact, Ochijenu
(1999:36) avers that it is not conflict per se but the management of it that is ‘injurious to
systems performance and existence’.
The thrust of the submission of Harbeson (2001:96) on the conflict that
characterizes intergovernmental relations is that the management of conflict needs to
focus on the objectives of establishing ‘rules of the game’ that facilitate realization of
the benefits of local government, while at the same time promoting ‘macro-level policy
and institutional interests animating central actors’. He restates that;
35
It involves sorting out relationships among national
ministries operating at the local level, their respective field
representatives and corresponding local government
agencies, while at the same time determining rules of the
game for sorting out grassroots generated local interests
and those of national government. Such pact formation
involves determining who shall speak for all such local
interests and for such national interest in the bargaining
process.
Worlu (2002), however, observes that contemporary intergovernmental practice,
especially in Nigeria, understate the magnitude and importance such ‘pact formation’, in
most cases, assume.
As already suggested by Harbeson (2001), the agenda for
conflict management between central and local interest is extensive and multifaceted
and involves more than ‘one level of horizontal and vertical negotiations between levels
of government.’ Vertical relations occur when the central government relate with the
states or local governments, or when the states interact with the local governments,
while horizontal relations take place when governments on the same ‘power locus’ in
the political structure interact. Examples are inter-state or inter-local interactions
(Roberst, 1999:60). Nicholas (2006) opines that the old question in politics of ‘who gets
what, when and how’ is nowhere more evident than in intergovernmental relations.
This appears to be one of the many explanatory variables for conflicts in
intergovernmental relations. The failure to address this issue in Nigerian federalism, in
the remarks of Worlu (2002), has heightened agitation from some sections for a
‘radically confederal political structure upon the country to counteract the abuses and
failures’ of intergovernmental management. These failures simply illustrate the complex
nature of intergovernmental relations (Okafor, 2007).
36
Federal-state-local relations operate on the same body of citizens who are
affected by the attitudes, policies and performances of the three tiers. Bello-Iman &
Agba (2004:53) observes that when a citizen is subjected to the influence of fiscal
operations of different levels of government, such a development leads to what
economists call ‘economics of multi-level’. This is, probably, why Oyovbaire (1985:7)
maintains that intergovernmental relations are not ‘relations of a two-person games
theory of political bargaining’.
Plano and Riggs (1975) in Gahia (2008:87) defines
games theory as ‘a body of thought dealing with rational decision strategies in
situations of conflict and competition, when each participant or player seeks to
maximize gains and minimize losses’. The ‘players’ and ‘decision units’ in this case are
the federal, states and local governments.
Although intergovernmental relation is widely associated with federal system of
government, it is not exclusive to federal arrangement.
In this wise, scholars like
Ezeani (2004:168) defined it ‘as interactions among the various spheres of government
in both the federal and unitary systems’. Ezeh (2007:79) on his part, posits that there is
no system of government without any form of intergovernmental relations.
This,
perhaps, includes the ‘unitarist-federalism’ that Achi (2004:15) avers is operated in
Nigeria at present. It connotes a political and constitutional order where functions and
powers are over-concentrated at the federal level.
In modern unitary systems such as Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom, there
are patterns of interactions, co-operations and interdependence between central and
local governments (Ogbunna 1996, Ochijenu 1999, Nwanegbo 2007).
Nwanegbo
(2007) specifically noted that a key ‘constructive consequence’ of the features and
37
concept of intergovernmental relations is that it has capacity for ‘cross-national
applicability and utility’.
He, however, makes it clear that the model of
intergovernmental relation each society adopts is ‘dependent on the development of the
state and its government’. Accordingly, he declares that;
There are no standard styles of intergovernmental relations
in use universally. In fact, just as there are some
differences in the practice of federalism, various styles of
authority relations also guide various patterns of
relationship among national, state and local governments.
These authority relations derive from the various practicing
countries’ constitutions and laws, which are also primarily
dependent on the nature of the state and the development
of its governance.
Hence, pattern or model of intergovernmental relations that operate successfully in the
United States of America may not have such degree or measure of success in either
Canadian, Australian or Nigerian federalism, due mainly, to the fact that each country
has its own history of state formation, socio-economic and political development. In
other words, the character of intergovernmental administration is unique to each
country’s history, geography, population, size and natural endowment.
It is worth concluding this section of our literature review with some of the more
cogent thoughts expressed by Ogbunna (1996:364) on what should be some basic
precepts on how intergovernmental relations should work. He states thus;
As local government are units that make up the states which
exist in the federation, each level of government is concerned
with the task of public security and public welfare, hence,
healthy and cordial intergovernmental relations are an
indispensable factor for good government and rapid
development.
But these ‘basic precepts’ would not detract from what the dilemmas or phenomena of
intergovernmental relations illustrate clearly from the synthesis of our review; that the
38
problems of federal-state-local relationships have always been critical issues in
democratic federations.
2.1.2 The Constitution and Management of Intergovernmental Relations
The complexities associated with intergovernmental relations, particularly in
developing countries, has brought to the fore the central role of the constitution as ‘the
creator of the governmental power, structure, responsibility and relationship’ (Okafor
2007:19). As Roberts (1999:57) opines, there is an intricate relationship between the
constitution and intergovernmental relations. This is because the relationship between
levels of government is formally spelt out in the constitution, especially the jurisdictional
powers of each level.
This also affirms the views of Onah (2004:55) that the
constitution is ‘the source from which all the tiers of government draw their life, and
which all is subject to.’ Again, Roberts (1999:58) argues that levels of government are
characterized by ‘co-ordinate and independent status’ because they are ‘equally
dependent on the constitution for their powers’.
A constitution is set of fundamental rules which define how a nation is governed.
Thus, Idoniboye (2004:66) defines a constitution as ‘the general rules, principles,
practices and conventions that define the structures and powers of a state and
determine the distribution of power among the various organs of government’.
A
constitution, whether written or unwritten, unitary or federal, also prescribes how
powers and functions are distributed between levels of government.
Among other
things, it determines the composition, powers, procedure and relationships of the
various branches and tiers of government and the exercise of power (Roberts, 1999).
39
In the same vein, Wali (2006:12) characterizes a situation in which the legal functional
precincts of component units or tiers of a federation are respected as constitutionalism.
A key feature of a federal system is a constitutional distribution of powers that
cannot be altered unilaterally by any level of government or by ordinary process of
legislation. A second feature is that a federal system must have levels of government,
through their own instrumentalities, exercising power directly over citizens. It differs
from a confederation, in which only sub-national units acts directly on citizens while the
central government acts only on the sub-national governments (Shafritz & Russel
1997). This goes to underscore the fact that the core issue of the nature of any federal
system is how to grapple with the management of intergovernmental relations. It also
affirms the position of Awa (1976:6) that federalism involves ‘cooperation, bargaining
and conflict’.
Thus, as Shafritz and Russel (1997:145) posit, ‘intergovernmental
relations is federalism in action.’
The submissions of Shafritz and Russel is that
intergovernmental relations is a complex network of day-to-day interrelationships
between levels of government within a federal system. In their words;
It is the political, fiscal, programmatic and administrative
processes by which higher units of governments share
revenues and other resources with lower units of
governments, generally accompanied by special conditions
that the lower units must satisfy as prerequisites to
receiving the assistance.
In essence, intergovernmental relations connotes the sets of policies and mechanisms
by which the interplay between different levels of government serving a common
geographical area is managed.
The point made in the thesis of Shafritz and Russel is that such ‘processes’ and
relations between tiers of government reflect the basic constitutional framework that
40
links them. Onah (2007:115) states categorically that ‘the constitution usually stipulates
the processes and institutions’ of intergovernmental relations. Put differently, it is the
constitutional specification of the jurisdictional powers and functions of the levels of
government that defines the nature and scope of interactions among them. Nicholas
(2006:380) is in agreement that how the different levels of government ‘act and react to
each other is based on broad rules of the game set by the constitution and court
decisions’. It simply means that an intergovernmental relation is operational within the
constitution and by subsequent judicial interpretation. We made reference to judicial
interpretation here because the constitution also allocates adjudicatory responsibility to
a constitutional court or other designated institutions to make authoritative decisions in
the interpretation of constitutional distribution of power whenever a conflict arises
(Roberts, 1999).
The essence of constitutional framework is well captured by Rodden (2002:674)
in the elaborate expression that;
For political scientists, federalism is much more than mere
fiscal decentralization. It implies that the autonomy of the
central government is effectively limited, either by
constitutional rules or informal constraints … Virtually all of
the distinguishing characteristics of federalism implies
limits on the central government’s ability to regulate the
fiscal activities of the states or provinces. Not only is the
expenditure autonomy of the provinces generally protected
by the constitution, but their representation in the Upper
Chamber often gives them veto power over any proposals
that would limit their funding or autonomy.
The above expressions underscore the significance of constitutional provisions in
defining intergovernmental relations. Onah (2007:1003) also reaffirmed this view when
he wrote that intergovernmental relations is determined by two factors; the
41
constitutional allocation of powers to the levels of government, and the amount of
resources available to governments at the different levels, often also determined by the
constitution. Alm and Boex (2002), on their part, submit pointedly that the Nigerian
constitution ‘defines the manner in which resources are shared among the different
levels of government’.
The nature of intergovernmental relations is determined by the level or amount of
influence the constituent units had in the formulation of the original constitutional
construct. As a matter of fact, Shafritz and Russel (1997:146) assert that the most
critical element that ‘forms and shapes the context’ of every tier of government is the
‘fundamental settlement or accord’ by which the constitution was drafted.
The
constitution, they further argued, is the ‘fundamental settlement defining the permanent
features of intergovernmental relations’. In other words, the terms of ‘settlement or
accord’ determine the nature, scope and powers of the various levels of government
involved; it sets basic parameters of federal-state-local interactions. Nwosu (1999:25)
also agree that the relative importance of each level of government to the entire polity is
determined by the scope of the authority, functions and resources available to it as
expressed in the constitution or other laws of the country. It is therefore, the letters of
the constitution that ‘restrict the authority of the central government with explicit
constitutional protection of the sub-units’. Again, the ‘relatively unchanging’ element of
the framework within which intergovernmental relations are conducted is represented in
the fact that, in some policy areas, the central government is ‘unable to change the
policy status quo without the agreement of a majority, supermajority, and sometimes
even unanimity of the constituent units’ (Rodden 2002).
The centrality of federal
42
government in intergovernmental relation is, however, reinforced in the position of
Kirchhheimer (1986) in Nicholas (2006:384) that ‘the sky of intergovernmental system
can fall either because of too much or too little federal activity’.
Within the parameters of Nigerian federation, Ifeanyi (2005:16) admits that there
is ‘progressive transfer of functions from the lower tiers of government to the higher tier,
to the extent that the practice of federalism is legitimized by the character of the federal
government’. Ifeanyi traced the trend to the colonial process which strengthened the
central authority at the expense of lower levels of government. In this era, Mccount and
Sola (1999:65) remarked that the local government was specifically treated as ‘a
political football’. In that process, there was systematic dismantling of local structures
on account of what the colonial authorities perceived as their backwardness, such that
even the most ordinary functions of lower levels of governance in other social
formations were subsumed within the central government.
This ‘anaemic’
intergovernmental relations persist, due mainly, to the inadequacies of the constitution
and the intemperate politics of a federation which, in the phrase of Olaniyonu
(2004:64), has ‘a domineering centre’. Branch and Cheeseman (2009:11) refer to this
type of constitutional framework as ‘top-heavy constitution’. It signifies a constitutional
architecture where ultimate control over the judiciary, provincial administration, the
media and security apparatus is vested in the federal government.
The fiscal relations among the three tiers of government presents itself in such a
situation where the federal government, which is just one of the beneficiaries of the
Federation Account, is the determinant of the content of that Account. Omorotionmwan
(2006:14) drew an apt analogy of drafting a will to explain the nature of fiscal relations
43
in Nigeria’s intergovernmental practice. He states that it is ‘like the case of the eldest
son in a family who should be one of the beneficiaries of the father’s will now being the
one who makes the will’. The analogy is quite fitting when we consider the fact that the
drafting of the 1999 Constitution was an exclusive prerogative of the federal
government. Indeed, there is a notion that puts both the states and local governments
in ‘a beggarly position’ with respect to the Federation Account. This erroneous notion is
that the states and local governments allocations are given to them as a result of the
‘magnanimity’ of the federal government, when in actual fact, the states and local
governments are entitled to the share of the Federation account, just as the Federal
Government. This is, perhaps, why Onah (2007:117) holds the view that the federal
government has utilized its ‘power of the purse’ to dominate the other levels of
government. The implication, is that the states and local governments, in the words of
Grimm and Gunther (2004:97) are ‘vulnerable to various shocks’. Omorohonmwan
(2009:18) further laments that;
under this faulty arrangement, the state and local
governments that desperately need money for
development by virtue of bringing the levels of government
nearer the grassroots are starved of funds while the
faraway Federal government continues to wallow in
opulence with so much surplus money in its idle hands.
As a matter of fact, the ill-fated Political Reforms Conference under the administration
of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, examined the fiscal relations among the three tiers of
government and condemned the practice where the federal government was
accounting for itself as well as the other tiers of government at the same time by
appropriating to itself ‘the surplus and over-surplus’ earnings that jointly belong to the
federal, states, and local governments (Omorotiomwan 2006, Njiowhor 2006).
44
The explanations to the above parlous, ruinous and fraudulent intergovernmental
relations are offered by Okezie (2007:17) in the comments that, Nigeria’s federal
arrangement has retained the military ‘legacy of centralizing power and resources’. He
comments further that it is ‘only an indication of a bad inheritance from the command
and centralizing structure of the military which is diffused in the 1999 Constitution.’ This
is in line with the assertion of Onah (2007:107) that federations which have witnessed
military rule for considerable periods ‘have usually developed over-whelming federal
power reflecting the unitarist command structures of the military establishment’. Under
such a long period of the centralizing influences of the military, it is rare to expect
Wheare’s formulation of federalism to, in the words of Ozor (2003:13), be ‘structured,
nurtured and cultured’. The extreme centralization of power and resources ‘gravitates’
to a point that lower tiers of government become ‘mere fiscal appendages’ of the
federal government. Even Shafritz and Russel (1997:163) admit that the most common
danger with intergovernmental relations is the tendency for each higher level to
‘micromanage’
those
below
them.
A
higher
government
is
accused
of
micromanagement when, for instance, it writes detailed rules for programme
management at the lower government into legislation, thus, denying the lower
government any real administrative discretion.
The consequence, in the views of
Wunsch (2001:278), is that local governance is ‘discouraged by the absence of real
decisions’. Under such framework, the federal government grows heavier and is more
dominant in the intergovernmental construct.
This is made possible through what
Wright (2008:223) refers to as ‘restricting the policy space’ of the lower tiers of
government. Even in organizational management, any manager is a ‘micromanager’ if
45
he or she refuses to allow subordinates have any real authority or responsibility.
According to Nicholas (2006) ‘pound cake federalism’ could serve as a metaphor for a
‘micromanaged’ intergovernmental practice, due to the fact that states and local
governments are being ‘pounded’ by the federal government.
The high degree of centralization of power and resources on the first tier of
government in Nigeria is further explained by the fact that Nigeria is one of the few
federations in which the national governments plays a key role in the supervision and
control of local governments. In most other federations, local governments fall within
the realm of state governments. This was the exact opinion of Roberts (1999:59) when
he wrote that ‘in classical federal constitution, local government is a state
responsibility’. Thus, while Nigeria has a federally instituted ‘national’ system of local
government, other federals such as Canada, the United States of America and
Australia have as many local government systems as there are provinces or states
(Gboyega 1991).
The implication is that while federal involvement with local
government is ‘generally indirect’ in other federations, in Nigeria it is both constitutional
and fiscal. Gboyega (1991:47) argues that federal influence over the operation of local
government is ‘likely to lead to a weakening of local autonomy’ as both the federal and
state governments ‘exercise constitutional rights of control and supervision.’ He posits
that;
It is the contradiction between federal and state values with
respect to local government as well as the cyclical
ascendancy of either set of values as represented by the
alteration of military and civilian rule that accounts for the
relative underdevelopment of local governments in Nigeria,
despite vigorous reforms instituted since 1976.
46
The federal dominance of local government reforms in Nigeria contrast sharply with
Canada and the United States of America. In the former, the province has been at the
forefront of local reforms. In the same vein, Dillion’s rule in the United States declared
the complete subordination of local governments to the state governments.
This
means that local governments are completely dependent on states for their existence,
powers, structure and personnel among others.
The practice is consistent with
classical federalism as Roberts (1999) alluded above. The results of these patterns of
interventions in the three federations show that local government is ‘strongest in the
United States where the civic culture supports local autonomy’ and is weakest in
Nigeria because ‘a more remote authority (the federal government) is the promoter of
local reforms’ (Gboyega 1991:48).
While the United States of America is a federation in which the influence of
regionalism has been drastically reduced, Canada reverses common federative
practice and allots residuary right to the dominion government symbolizing pronounced
regionalism (Adeniran 1991:32). The fiscal relations between States and Local
Government in Australia and Nigeria are similar. In the two federations, grants or
allocations from the federal government to local governments are channeled through
the states in a prescribed manner. A common denominator of these federations is that
there is a system of two or more levels of government with what Oyovbaire (1985:274)
refers to as ‘a measure of freedom of legislation and administration over a substantial
sphere of political action’. The nature of ‘freedom and of the sphere of political action’
is, however, a product of the history of each society and the character of its political
order.
47
The foregoing provides very useful background for understanding the dynamics
of local reorganization and the effect of direct federal involvement with local
government administration. The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
and its management of intergovernmental relations was put to test in the dispute
between the Lagos State Government and the Federal Government over the creation of
additional Local Government Areas in Lagos. While the Lagos State Government had
followed due process in creating additional thirty-seven (37) Local Government Areas in
line with section 8(3) of the Constitution, the Federal Government withheld statutory
allocation of local governments in Lagos because the newly created local government
areas were not listed or accommodated in the Constitution. The dispute became a
subject of litigation in Supreme Court.
The Lead judgment delivered by Justice
Muhammed Uwais held that the enactment of Local Government Areas Law No.5 of
2002 and Local Government Areas (Amendment) Law 2004 are both valid laws, but
that such Laws ‘cannot be operative or have full effect until the National Assembly
makes the necessary amendments to section 3, subsection (6) and Part 1 of the First
Schedule of the Constitution.’ The Supreme Court, in its December 10, 2004 ruling
also averred that the Federal Government has no power to withhold the allocation to
any tier of government, and that the new local government areas, though properly and
legally created, are inoperable until listed in the constitution.
In a dissenting and
minority judgment by Justices Uwaifo and Sunday Akintan, it was affirmed that ‘the
creation of local government areas is entirely a state affair’ and that such exercise
‘does not confer any supervisory authority on the National Assembly which it may use
to delay, direct, control or frustrate the effect of a law duty enacted by a state’ (Eni
48
2005, The Guardian, December 21, 2004 in Chukwuemeka & Uche 2005:325). The
case became a great opportunity to test how far the 1999 Constitution can live up to in
the management of intergovernmental relations. Indeed, the imbroglio resulting from
this intergovernmental dispute led to what Roberts (1999:65) termed ‘a politicized and
conflicting system of intergovernmental relations’.
2.1.3 State-Local Government Relations under the 1999 Constitution
The 1999 constitution of Nigeria is written, rigid, federal, presidential, and
recognized the states and local governments as second and third tier government
respectively (Ibeanu 2008). The jurisdiction of the state government is spelt out in Part
II of the Second Schedule which contains the Concurrent Legislative List over which
both the federal and state governments have concurrent powers.
Where there is
inconsistency between federal and state laws on the Concurrent List, section 4 (5)
provides that ‘the law made by the National Assembly shall prevail, and that other law
shall, to the extent of the inconsistency be void.’ Section 4 (7) (a) also provide that the
state legislate over ‘any matter not included in the Exclusive Legislative List set out in
Part 1 of the Second Schedule.’ The Fourth Schedule of the Constitution contains the
functions of a local government. In reality, even if the local government councils have
legislative powers over certain matters provided for in the constitution, such powers are
subsumed under the legislative powers of the House of Assembly of States (Lloyd
2008:2).
The 1999 Constitution, according to Onah (2004:8) was drafted at a time that the
agitation for decentralized federalism reached a crescendo. The underlying principle of
federalism requires that, within the framework of a central government, matters of local
49
concern should be managed by the state government (Nwabueze 1982 in
Chukwuemeka & Uche 2005:319). This, therefore, explains the constitutional provision
restoring to the states the power to create local governments. Hence, section 7 (1) of
the Constitution prescribes that;
The system of local government 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.
The Constitution guarantees the system of democratically elected local government
councils but makes it a state responsibility to ensure their existence, structure,
composition, finance and functions. This shows clearly that local governments are
‘instituted’ by the constitution but derive their ‘power of existence’ from the state
governments, which in the views of Chukwuemeka and Uche (2005:317) have the
power ‘to make and unmake’. Although the constitution expresses the power of the
state government to ‘make’, but that in no way implies the power of the state
government to ‘unmake’. However, what is not in dispute in state-local government
relations, from the letters of the constitution, is that local government is essentially a
states subject (Ola & Tonwe 2005). Even the power to create new local government
areas as enshrined in section 8 (3) is in the Residual Legislative Powers of State House
of Assembly.
Interestingly, Lloyd (2008:4) avers that ‘Residual Legislative List’ is
merely a concept, as no mention is made of it in the constitution. It simply refers to
matters or items not enumerated in the Exclusive and Concurrent Legislative Lists.
50
Fiscal relations between states and local governments are also provided for in
the 1999 Constitution. As Alm & Boex (2002) put it, the issue of intergovernmental
fiscal relations has been a ‘constant and important fiscal policy consideration in Nigeria
since the country’s independence in 1960’. Therefore, fiscal arrangement, according to
Onah (2007:101), has been used to gauge the stake a particular segment of the
population has in the federal structure and what powers, real and statutory, a tier
wields. Section 7 (6) (b) prescribes that ‘the House of Assembly of a State shall make
provisions for statutory allocation of public revenue to local government councils within
the state’. Other issues of statutory allocation of public revenue to local government
councils are provided in section 162 (5) as follows;
The amount standing to the credit of local government in
the Federation Account shall also be allocated to the states
for the benefit of their local government councils on such
terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the
National Assembly.
The Constitution went ahead under sub-section 6 to provide for a special account
called the ‘State Joint Local Government Account’ to be established and principally
managed by the state. It reads:
Each state shall maintain a special account to be called
‘State Joint Local Government Account’ into which shall be
paid all allocation to the local government councils of the
state from the Federation Account and from the
government of the state.
In the observation of Chikendu & Nwanegbo (2005:199), this provision ‘literarily
entrusts unto the state government, the guardianship of the local government fund’
from the Federation Account.
Sub-section 7 provides thus;
51
Each state shall pay to local government councils 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.
Statutory allocation from the state to local governments currently stand at 10 percent of
internally generated revenue of the state.
In other words, states are required or
directed to give 10 percent of internally generated revenue to local government councils
(Ezeani 2004, Okon 2004).
Sub-section 8 states that;
The amount standing to the credit of local government
councils of a state shall be distributed among the local
government councils of that state on such terms and in
such manner as may be prescribed by the House of
Assembly of the state.
This sub-section empowers the State House of Assembly to decide the formula for
allocating funds from the State Joint Local Government Account to the local
governments.
In line with section 7 (3) of the Constitution, the states are expected to pass a law
giving birth to an Economic Planning Board as a way of enabling the participation of the
Local Governments in the economic planning and development programmes or
initiatives of the state, especially within their respective areas. The section reads thus;
It shall be the duty of a local government within the state to
participate in economic planning and development of the
area referred to in sub-section (2) of this section and to this
end an economic planning board shall be established by a
law enacted by the House of Assembly of the state.
Under the 1999 Constitution, the state governments are also empowered to set
up State Independent Electoral Commission for the purposes of conducting local
government elections. This is stipulated in section 197 (1) (b). Part II section 4(a) of
52
the Third Schedule specifies that the State Independent Electoral Commission shall
have power ‘to organize, undertake and supervise all elections to the local government
councils within the state’. The Chairman and Members of the Commission are
appointed by the governor, and the appointment is confirmed by a resolution of the
House of Assembly.
The foregoing provisions of the 1999 Constitution on state-local government
relations attracts the reaction of Roberts (1999) in Roberts (1999:66) in these terms;
The provisions of the 1999 constitution are such that leave
us in no doubt as to the application of Dillon’s Rule. The
immediate implication is that local governments are not of
the mainstream of IGR in the federation. The specific
relations between state and their local government have
historically been problematic such that ‘local autonomy’ has
been little more than a publicity stunt by legitimacy seeking
governments.
This reaction, no doubt, suggests that certain provisions or clauses of the 1999
Constitution could portend ominous implications for state-local government relations,
especially in the context of co-operative federalism.
2.1.4 Review of Rivers State Local Government Laws
Pursuant to section 7 (1) of the 1999 Constitution, the Rivers State House of
Assembly enacted the Rivers State Local Law No.3 of 1999. Egobueze (2008:37)
describes the law as ‘high impact law.’ The law makes provision for the establishment,
structure, composition, finance, and functions of local government councils in Rivers
State and matters incidental thereto. Apart from the Principal Law, Five Amendments
have been made. The Amendment Laws include the following:
i.
Rivers State Local Government (Amendment) Law, No.6 of 2001.
53
ii.
Rivers State Local Government (Amendment) Law, No.3 of 2002.
iii.
Rivers State Local Government (Amendment) Law, No.4 of 2003.
iv.
Rivers State Local Government (Amendment) Law, No.3 of 2004.
v.
Rivers State Local Government (Amendment) Law, No.5 of 2007.
While Egobueze (2008) observes that the Rivers State Government Law is the most
amended law in the state, Ojirika (2005) in Ibeanu (2008:12) writes that these five
amendments were made to ensure that the law ‘stand the test of time’.
In this review, we shall limit ourselves to the provisions of the law that are
relevant to this study. Section 1 of the Law guarantees the existence of 23 Local
Government Councils. Section 4(1) provides for the composition of the councils and it
states that;
For every local government Area, there shall be a council
which shall be composed of an elected chairman, vice
chairman and councillors.
Section 4(2) specifies that;
The number of elected councillors of a council shall not be
less than ten and not more than twenty.
Section 5 provides for mode of election to a council. Sub-section 1 reads that;
Subject to the provision of this law, the members of a
council shall be elected in accordance with regulations
made under the provisions of the Rivers State Independent
Electoral Commission Law.
This simply means that the Rivers State House of Assembly also enacts an Electoral
Law that guides the conduct of local government elections.
The Rivers State
Government constitutes and funds the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission
(RSIEC).
54
Section 6 prescribes qualifications for elections and franchise. Disqualification
for office is in section 7, while sections 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 is concerned with validity
of acts done by unqualified persons, terms of office of elected members, vacancy in the
seat of a member of the legislative council, recall of a councilor, vacancy in the seat of
a chairman or vice chairman.
The section on the term of office for elected members of the council reads thus:
‘shall not be less than three years and not more than three years and three months.’
Section 2 of the Rivers State Local Government (Amendment) Law, No.6 of 2001
amended the term of office to read thus: ‘shall be three years’, and was further
amended in Rivers State Local Government (Amendment) Law, No.3 of 2002 to make
provision for the appointment of Caretaker Committee for Local Governments by the
Governor. Section 4 (11) of the Rivers State Local government (Amendment) Law,
No.3 of 2002 provides that;
Where an emergency or any other situation arises which
makes impossible the holding of local government election
within the period stipulated under the principal law as
amended, the governor shall, upon the expiration of the
tenure of the serving council administration, appoint for
each local government a caretaker committee of not more
than five persons (one of whom shall be the chairman)
from the Local Government Area.
Sub-section (iii) holds that ‘a person appointed as chairman or member of a caretaker
committee of a local government area shall be subject to screening and confirmation by
the House of Assembly.’ Section 5(i) empowers a Caretaker Committee appointed
under subsection (4) to ‘oversee the affairs of the local government council for a period
of three months, subject to re-appointment for a second term.’ It therefore means that
a particular caretaker committee can have a lifespan of six months. Ibeanu (2008:13)
55
argues that the appointment of caretaker committee instead of elected officers as
provided for in section 7(1) of the 1999 constitution is ‘geared towards making the state
government have firm control in the administration of local councils’. Roberts (1999:67)
aligned with the views of Ibeanu when he wrote that;
State could defy the constitutional provision for
democratically elected leadership in local governments by
delaying or frustrating the establishment of the State
Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC) and, hence, the
conduct of the appropriate elections to suit political
interests. Under such conditions, there is easy resort to
appointment of caretaker or management committees
exclusively accountable to state government.
Section 13 (5) and 9 (b) grants enormous powers to the State house of Assembly
in the removal of chairman or vice chairman of a local government council. Whenever
a notice of allegation of gross misconduct is raised against the aforementioned officials,
and duly debated, and a motion passed by the Legislative Council that a chairman or
vice chairman be removed, sub-section (5) provides that;
The leader of the legislative council shall within seven days
of the resolution present the resolution, the notice of
allegations and any reply thereof, to the clerk of the Rivers
State House of Assembly, who shall within seven days of
the receipt of the resolution present it to the House.
Sub-section 6, 7, 8 takes care of the other procedures of removal such as constituting
panel by the Chief Judge of the State and the presentation of the report of the findings
of the panel to the Clerk of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
Sub-section 9 (b) of section 15 allows the Rivers State House of Assembly to
exercise its powers to remove a chairman or vice chairman. It reads thus;
Where the report of the panel is that the allegation against
the holder of the office has been proven then within
fourteen days of the receipt of the report the House of
56
Assembly shall consider the report and if by a resolution of
the House of Assembly supported by a simple majority of
members present and voting the report of the panel is
adopted then the holder of the office shall stand removed
from office as from the date of the adoption of the report.
In the same vein, section 10 empowers the House of Assembly to suspend a chairman
or vice chairman who is under investigation of gross misconduct and also order that the
accounts of the affected council be frozen through a resolution supported by two-thirds
of its members.
Rivers State Local Government Law, No.3 of 1999 also makes provision for the
establishment of a Local Government Service Commission in Section 44(1).
The
chairman and members are appointed by the Governor, subject to the confirmation by a
resolution of the House of Assembly. The Governor in section 47 (a) and (b) makes
regulation providing for the functions and organization of the work of the Commission.
Section 48 (1) gives the Local Government Service Commission the following powers;
The power to appoint persons to hold or act in offices in a
local government council, including power to make
appointments and promotions and to confirm appointment
and to dismiss and to exercise disciplinary control over
persons holding or acting in such offices are vested in the
commission.
Section 64 (1), provides for the Rivers State House of Assembly to inquire into
the affairs of the councils unhindered. It states thus;
The Rivers State House of Assembly may at any time
inquire into the running of any local government council
and given such directives as it may deem necessary.
This section empowers the Rivers State House of Assembly to arbitrarily interfere in the
administration of local government councils. The section completely ignores the thesis
57
of Hasheni (1996) in Akikibofori (2008:129) that ‘relative freedom from domination’ is a
key component of empowerment. As Ibeanu (2008:12) observes, this is strange to
what happens in the first and second tiers of government, where both derive their
power from the constitution.
Sub-sections (2) and (3) is more repugnant to the
autonomy of local government council and its status as a tier of government. The
former states that;
Where the Governor is satisfied that any local government
is in default of the provisions of this law or the council
engages in any activity that is detrimental to the corporate
existence of the state or local government, he shall submit
details of such default to the Rivers State House of
Assembly with a request for the dissolution of that council.
Pursuant to sub-section (2), subsection (3) provides that;
The Rivers State House of Assembly shall consider the
request, and if approved by two-thirds majority of the
members, such council shall immediately stand dissolved
from the date of such approval.
The combined effects of section 64 (1) (11) and (111) of the Rivers State Local
Government Law on local government councils cannot be lost when we consider not
only the ‘rubber-stamp’ character or posture that most State Houses of Assembly have
assumed since the return to civil rule in 1999, but also the one party status of most
state legislature.
What actually prevails in most states of the federation is what
Okodudu (2007:144) refers to as ‘rampant executive meddlesomeness and
encroachment’ in the affairs of state legislature.
The implications of the provisions of the Rivers State Local Government Law; the
Principal Law and subsequent Amendments; may mean different things to different
58
observers and actors.
To some, certain provisions are vexatious, oppressive and
impinge on local government autonomy, while to others, the provisions only accentuate
the supervisory roles assigned the state governments over the local government by the
principles of section 7(1) of the 1999 constitution. This divergence of interpretations and
opinions is not surprising. As Okoli (1995:164) opined, it stems from the divergent
assumptions which inform the philosophy of local government not only in Nigeria, but all
over the world.
2.1.5 Synthesis of the Literature
Incontrovertibly, so much has been written on the subject of intergovernmental
relations; its conceptual clarifications, nature, types, mechanisms, institutional
basis/framework and cross-country experiences. One dominant tendency, in most of
the literature, is the assumption that formal description of powers and functions
contained in a document would provide the basis for understanding actual patterns of
relationships between tiers of government.
Analyses of behavioural and political
factors on state-local relations are rare. In other words, there is little consideration of
the roles of political actors whose orientation, attitudes, behaviours and actions can
bear
positively
or
negatively
intergovernmental relations.
upon
policy-making
especially
on
matters
of
In fact, the ‘complex matrix’ of state-local government
relations, especially in Third World countries is, sometimes, believed to be more
behavioural than constitutional.
There is almost a total neglect of these factors in
previous studies. There has also been little research evidence as to the impact of
state-local level interface in shaping and determining the character of politics,
59
governance and development. It is, therefore, these recognized pitfalls that our study is
set to address, with focus on Rivers State.
2.2
Theoretical Framework
It is a tradition in the Social Sciences to adopt existing paradigms or theories to
enable us articulate our analysis (Obuoforibo 2002).
Theories are simply the
foundations upon which explanations or predictions can be made. In many ways, a
theory is ‘a guide to action and an aid in search for the essential meaning of
occurrences’ (Onyema 1997).
This study is anchored on two theoretical constructs, namely; StructuralFunctional Approach and Theory of Federalism. Structural-Functional Theory is an
important tool of investigation with predominantly sociological concept, applied by
political scientists, particularly in the study of the nature/structure of government,
comparative politics and the political system (Das & Choudhury 2002). Key exponents
of Structural-Functional theory in political science are Gabriel Almond, William C.
Mitchell and David Apter.
Structural-Functional theory revolves around the concepts of ‘structure’ and
‘functions’. The former, according to Almond and Powell (1966) means ‘the observable
activities which make up a system’. The latter, is the ‘contribution of some elements in
a system to the maintenance of the system in a given state’. While functions deal with
the consequences involving objectives as well as processes of the patterns of action,
structures refer to those arrangements within the system which perform the functions
(Das & Choudhury 2002:40). These are similar to views expressed by Ake (1975) in
60
Ntete-Nna (2004:143) on the concepts of structures and functions. Ntete Nna presents
Ake’s views as follows:
Functions deal with the consequences of a pattern of
action (involving objectives as well as processes), while
structures refer to those arrangements, which perform
functions or roles.
The Structural-Functional Approach will be clearer with a concise explanation of
functionalism and structuralism. These are very close related paradigms. Despite their
mutuality, Anikpo (2006:62) observes that they appear as ‘the opposite ends of the
same continuum’. Both actually view the society as comprising of interrelated parts.
The major difference however is that while functionalism adopts a holistic attitude to the
analysis of society, structuralism prefers a particularistic approach. Functionalism,
according to Anikpo (2006) takes ‘a teleological posture’; which appreciates the
significance of the component parts only to the extent that they function ‘to keep the
society in equilibrium’. On the other hand, structuralism accepts the sub-units of a
society as autonomous entities irrespective of the interrelationship existing among
them. Hence, the dynamics or workings of society is better understood by a detailed
examination of each sub-unit rather than subsuming the existence of the parts into the
whole.
The reason is that different sub-units of a society can co-exist without
necessarily being indispensable or material to the maintenance of the larger society. It
is the combination of the two approaches in modern social science that is
conceptualized as structural-functional approach. This synergy is given credence by
the position of Das & Choudhury (2002:38) that few concepts in the history of modern
social sciences have generated as much discussion as those of ‘structures’ and
‘functions’ and the type of analysis associated with them.
61
Das & Choudhury (2002:39) have presented the following as the basic
assumptions of structural-functional theory;
i.
All systems have structures which can be identified.
The elements of these
structures perform functions within the system, which have meaning only in terms
of the system. They are dependent on the system as an active entity for their
existence. They are also dependent on each other for their activity.
ii.
The society is single inter-connected system, each element performing a specific
function. The interaction among the component parts is necessary for the
maintenance of the equilibrium.
iii.
The different parts of society are inter-related and tensions are resolved with
mutual help.
iv.
The broad aims or principles underlying a social structure can be identified.
Ritzer (2000:109) also identified three basic postulates of structural-functional
theory. The first is the postulates of the functional unity of society. This view implies
that the various parts of social and political system must show a high level of
integration.
Universal functionalism is the second postulate.
This implies that all
structures have positive functions. Third is the postulate of indispensability.
The
argument here is that all standardized aspects of society not only have positive
functions but also represent indispensable parts of the working whole. This postulate
leads to the idea that all structures and functions are necessary for the survival of the
political system.
The basic principle of this theory is that every system has some structures which
performs some functions which are necessary for the survival of the system itself. As
62
Das & Choudhury (2002) averred, structural-functional approach has come to politics
as ‘an offshoot or derivative of systems analysis’ since it is concerned with ‘the
phenomenon of systems maintenance and regulation’. As with system analysis, Dowse
& Hughes (1972:77) admit that in structural-functional theory, the political system must
respond to its environment by either breaking down, changing environment or by
‘developing instrumentalities to cope with environmental challenges’.
Structural –Functional theory is basically a means of explaining what political
structures perform what basic functions in the political systems.
Analysts are,
therefore, not only interested in identifying what structures exist in a given society, what
functions they perform and how they perform these functions, but also the
consequences of the relationships which obtain in the society in terms of the survival of
the system. In other words, the central concern of the structural functional theory is a
consideration of the nature and consequences of the relationship that exist in a society.
As shown in Otite and Ogionwo (2006:18) the theory has succeeded largely in relating
one part or parts to the whole society, and in relating one part to another as they
function to maintain the whole system.
Thus, analysts not only try to set out the
conditions which could enhance the survival of the system but importantly, to identify
the related roles sets which make up the structures that perform the functions by which
the political system operates. Consequently, the relationship is said to be functional if it
promotes, enhances or catalyzes the survival of the political system. On the contrary, it
is said to be dysfunctional if the possibility exists that it will diminish the chances of
survival of the political system (Ntete-Nna 2004).
63
The idea of a dysfunction was developed in recognition of the fact that ‘one social
act can have negative consequences for another social act’. Just as structures or
institutions could contribute to the maintenance of other parts of the social and political
system, they could also have negative consequences for them (Ritzer 2000:110). This
is why, in addition to functions, structural-functional theory is also concerned with
dysfunctions. Ritzer buttresses final thesis, thus;
Slavery in the Southern United States, for example, clearly
had positive consequences for White Southerners, such as
supplying cheap labour, support for the cotton economy
and social status. It also had dysfunctions, such as making
Southerners overly dependent on an agrarian economy
and therefore unprepared for industrialization can be
traced, at least in part, to the dysfunction of the institution
of slavery of the South.
Given these submissions, structural-functional theory is concerned with what Robert
Merton (1968) in Ritzer (2000:133) refers to as ‘the net balance of functions and
dysfunctions’.
In same vein, Merton (1968) in Das & Choudhury (2000:41) distinguishes
between ‘functions’ and ‘dysfunctions’ on the basis of ‘the issue of survival and
disintegration of the system’. He states thus,
While ‘functions’ are those observed consequences which
facilitate the process and adaptation or adjustment of a
given society, ‘dysfunction’ are those observed
consequences which lessen the adaptation or adjustment
of the same.
The dysfunction can make for disequilibrium, conflict or total breakdown of the system.
As a matter of fact, Otite and Ogionwo (2006:18) affirm that societies are hardly in
equilibrium as not all behaviours or relationship lead to harmony.
To Otite and
Ogionwo, ‘conflicts and confrontations are normal social phenomena’. They, however,
64
admit that such conflict relations do not generally lead to disintegration. Such conflicts,
according to Asobie (2005:76) are either conducted or perceived as intergovernmental
contests or struggles. It may occur when a sub-unit of a government tries to prevent
another from obtaining resources that are vital to its survival and performance of its
statutory functions. The bone of contention in this type of conflict is economic
resources. This is why Anikpo (2006:64) infers that a major consideration in what is
known as conflict analysis is that, conflict arises because of ‘the perennial inequality in
their respective shares of the products and resources in society’. And as Peet
(1991:55) observed, conflict analysis not only tries to ‘uncover the hidden causes of
social events’; it also places emphasis on ‘the exploitative character of government’.
Conflict analysis, in this sense, can be seen as a development that took place, at least
in part, in relation to Structural-Functionalist theory. In the main, conflict theory is little
more than a series of contentions that are often direct opposites of functionalists
positions (Ritzer 2000:123).
In applying structural-functional analysis, Almond in Das & Choudhury (2000:44)
hold that political system can be compared and ranked in terms of the manner in which
the functions are performed. In fact, Varma (1996:212) maintains that Gabriel Almond
would always like to approach an understanding of the structures within the political
system through their functions. Each political system, according to Almond, has to
perform certain functions, and it is on the basis of the efficiency with which a political
system performs the functions assigned to it that its stature in the scale of political
development is determined. Almond therefore identifies two types of functions of a
political system. They are input functions and output functions. The input functions are
65
activities associated with the formation and transmission of demands and supports.
They are political recruitment and socialization, interest articulation, interest aggression,
and political communication.
The ‘specialized structures’ for interest articulation,
interest aggregation and political communication are interest groups, political parties
and the mass media respectively (Varma 1996). These input functions, according to
Ntete-Nna (2004) are not performed by government or governmental agencies. Output
functions, on the other hand, are a three fold governmental function associated with
policy-making and implementation. They are rule making, rule application and rule
adjudication.
The summary of structural-functional approach is articulated by Anikpo (2006:36)
in the remarks that ‘the contemporary notion of structuralism is not tied to functionalist
assumptions of order and equilibrium in society’.
Accordingly, structural-functional
approach not only recognizes the inter-dependence of the units of a society but also
notes that the relationship between the sub-units does not lead to equilibrium neither is
it a balancing factor. On the contrary, the relationship between the sub-units is only a
tool in the hands of the dominant sub-units of a system to sustain what Fidelis
(2004:45) refers to as ‘a state of equilibrium of the disequilibria’. The result is affluence
in
the
dominant
parts
and
poverty,
misery,
chaos
and
other
indices
of
underdevelopment in the dominated sub-units. Our interest and focus in the adoption
of Structural-Functional theory is driven by its concern with interrelationship in a political
system and the effects of structures and institutions on actors at the state and local
governments. This explains our application of Structural-Functional Approach to the
issue of state-local government relations.
66
The thrust of the Theory of Federalism, which is our second theoretical
framework for analysis, is premised upon the idea that existing structure of societal
conflict, consensus and resources can be organized into two communities to which
citizens belong. In other words, it is assumed that every citizen belongs to at least two
political communities. Kenneth C. Wheare is generally regarded as the foremost
exponent of the modern theory and concept of federalism.
The study of federalism is pre-occupied with the allocation of political power
between the levels of government of a society. In a federal system, taking into account
the formulation of K.C. Wheare, power is conceived or said to be divided between
federal (central) and the state (regional or provincial) government by the constitutional
arrangement of society such that certain limitations are placed upon the exercise of
power by each level within the total situation. More than that, it presupposes that not
only can political power be allocated but that the concept itself can be explicitly defined
and its constituents specified, measured or indicated (Alapiki & Odondiri, 1995).
The dominant intellectual viewpoint on the subject of federalism is that since it is
a form of constitutional government which sets limits on the powers of different levels of
government, it should be ‘incompatible with autocracy or totalitarian rule’. As a matter of
fact, K.C. Wheare insists that democratic and constitutional government is a ‘condition
of federalism’. This viewpoint, accounting to Jinadu (1979) further contends that where
there are no liberal democratic institutions and structures such as elected parliament,
competitive party system, regular and free elections, political participation etc, then
there can be no federalism. Thus, in apparent reference to Wheare, Yekini Salisu
67
(1992) in Okoko & Nna (1997:17) has given some basic properties of a federal polity.
Among these are the following:
i.
There is a constitution deliberately written where each level of government
derives it functions and responsibilities,
ii.
There is division of powers, functions and responsibilities among levels of
government.
iii.
Each level of government should have sufficient financial resources to carryout
its constitutional responsibilities and that financial dependence on one level of
government on another jeopardizes the survival of federalism.
It is perhaps in recognition of these ‘basic properties of a federal polity’ that
Bernard Burrows et al (1978) in Okoko & Nna (1997:17) maintained that
federalism means the ‘distribution of powers and responsibilities to appropriate
political levels and types of institutions both up and down the scale so as to
combine representation and authority, union and diversify organization and
freedom’.
In applying the theory of federalism, we are guided by the submission of
Alapiki & Odondiri (1995:21) that in the last three decades, both focus and
emphasis on federalism have tended to change with non -legal and non-formal
institutions giving rise to essential ingredients and focus on analysis of
intergovernmental relations. Consequently, scholars have tended to see
federalism as ‘essentially a sociological phenomenon, a process or a political
bargain’. Therefore, our adoption of the theory of federalism in this study is in
recognition of the fact that power in federal system, as Alapiki and Odondiri
68
(1995:21) averred, ‘reside not only in formal, legal and constitutional instruments,
but perhaps more importantly on the dynamics of political, economic and social
processes’.
2.2.1 Application of Theoretical Framework to the Study
The Structural Functional approach adopted in this study explains the
relationships among the various tiers of government in a federal system.
Gabriel
Almond, a foremost exponent of the theory, emphasizes that the structures of
government and how they function go a long way in determining the efficacy or
otherwise of a political system.
Almond even made a classification scheme of
structures that is based, primarily, on the degree of differentiation, the stability of the
functions of the various roles and the distribution of power. This will guide us determine
systemic maintenance, survival and stability of both the state and local governments.
Similarly, we applied the Theory of Federalism to analyze the relationship
between the State and Local Governments in terms of the control or appropriation of
resources and political power by either of the two units of the federation. This is done
on the assumption that the stability of any federal system is often determined by the
existence or otherwise of the opportunity for a fair equitable distribution and sharing of
political power and revenue.
In this study, we assume the position that Structural-Functional Theory and
Theory of Federalism are suitable for analysis, primarily because of the selective
aspects of social reality that they seek to describe, explain and predict. This assisted
us study state-local government relations, largely in terms of structures, processes,
69
mechanisms, and functions. These four concepts are of particular importance in the
findings and discussions we made.
2.3
(i)
Hypotheses
The provisions of the 1999 Constitution and the Rivers State Local Government
Law erode the status of Local Government Councils as a tier of government and
enhance that of the State Government.
(ii) The administrative structure of Local Government Councils is subject to the control
and manipulation of the State Government.
(iii) The administration of State Joint Local Government Account enhances the
finances of the State Government and impedes financial autonomy of Local
Government Councils.
2.4 Operationalisation of Key Concepts
(i)
State-Local Relations: This means all administrative, fiscal, political and legal
interactions or processes between the State Government and Local Government
Councils by which both tiers of government acquires control over the instruments
of power and resources for performance of political, constitutional and
administrative functions.
(ii) State Government: It denotes all organs, institutions, authorities, ministries,
departments, agencies and commissions of the second tier government
recognized in the 1999 Constitution with its powers spelt out in the Concurrent
Legislative List. It also has jurisdiction over matters or items not mentioned in
either the Exclusive or Concurrent Legislative Lists.
70
(iii) Local Government: It denotes all authorities and institutions operating as part of
the third tier government guaranteed in section 7(1) of the 1999 constitution with its
functions outlined in the Fourth Schedule.
(iv) Tier of Government: It stands for a separate, distinct and independent level of
government with constitutional status, powers and financial autonomy.
(v) Administrative Structure: This refers to all elected and appointed officials and
career civil servants that operate or run the affairs of a tier of government.
(vi) Financial autonomy: It is when all funds and revenues legally standing to the
credit of a tier of government is accessed and used by the government concerned
without any form of interference, deduction or diversion by another tier.
2.5 The Study Area
2.5.1 History and Geography of Rivers State
Rivers State was created by Decree No.19 of 1967 under the military
administration of General Yakubu Gowon. Before then, the territory was known as Oil
Rivers Protectorate. Naanem (2002) writes that the creation of Rivers State was not
‘an act of benevolence’, but a ‘product of a combination of more than two decades of
political and constitutional struggle, and the Nigeria political crisis of the 1960s’. In
October 1996, Bayelsa State was created out of the present Rivers State. The 2006
census figures put the population of Rivers State at over 5 million people. The state
has twenty-three (23) Local Government Areas listed in the 1999 Constitution.
Rivers State is bounded on the South by the Atlantic Ocean, the North by
Anambra, Imo and Abia States; the East by Akwa Ibom State and the West by Bayelsa
and Delta States. Rivers State has topography of relatively flat plain netted in a web of
71
rivers, creeks and tributaries, creating what Okonny (2002:18) refers to as ‘a water
environment’. Major among these rivers are New Calabar, Orashi, Bonny, Sombreiro,
St. Bartholomew and Santa Barbara. There is also a delicate balance between the sea
and the land because as Okonny (2002) observed, ‘the sea is either gaining on the
landmass or the land is gaining on the sea’.
The 23 Local Government Areas of Rivers State belong to three different
although broadly similar geomorphologic and geotechnical zones. The zones are,
Saltwater (marine) Coastal, Saltwater/Fresh Water Transitional and Freshwater Upland.
These zones constitute the major environmental zones of the Eastern Niger Delta (BellGam 2002). The soils of Rivers State have also been studied and classified into the
following; soils of the Beach Ridges, soils of the Mangrove Swamp Forests, Transitional
soils, soils of Sombreiro-Warri Deltaic / Sub Alluvial Terrace, soils of the Coastal Plain
Sands and soils of the Fresh Water Alluvial Plain (Ayolagha & Onuegbu 2002:19).
The monthly rainfall in Rivers State is almost predictable and follows a temporal
sequence of increase toward July-August before decreasing in the dry season months
of November – February. Oyegun and Ologunorisa (2002:57) conclude that;
The weather and climate of Rivers State is a function of its
geographical location within the humid tropical environment, the
short distance away from the Atlantic Ocean, the urban factor of
pollution and the prevailing Tropical Maritime (TM) air mass which
blows over the state at different times of the year.
The geography of Rivers State, according to Okonny (2002:18), typifies ‘interactions
between nature and man.’
72
2.5.2 Peoples and Culture of Rivers State
Rivers State is made up of various ethnic groups, namely Abua, Andoni, Ekpeye,
Engenni, Etche, Ikwerre, Ibani, Kalabari, Ndoni, Ogba, Ogoni, Okrika, etc. The ethnic
groups have been existing centuries before the creation of the state in 1967 (Rivers
State Government Bulletin, 2003). There are many languages and dialectics spoken in
Rivers State, and none of the indigenous languages can be used as a common
medium of communication. This is why Williamson and Ndimele (2002:149) posit that
the present Rivers State is ‘still linguistically complex.’ Accordingly, Williamson and
Ndimele identified three branches of the Benu-Congo family spoken by majority of
Rivers State people; Igboid Branch, Delta-Cross Group and Delta-Edoid Group.
The language and dialects of the Igboid group are represented by the Ikwerre,
Ekpeye, Etche, Ogba, Egbema, Ndoni and Oyigbo people. There are three groups of
the Delta-Cross branch represented in Rivers State; Kegboid (Ogoni), Lower Cross and
Central Delta. Kegboid consist of Kana, Eleme, Tai and Baan dialects. The only
member of Lower Cross group is Obolo, also known as Andoni while the Central Delta
Group comprises the dialects of Abua, Odual, Bukuma, Abuluma and Ikwerrengwo, and
Umuebulu.
The Delta Edoid group is represented in the dialects of Degema and
Engenni. The Ijoid family is divided into Defaka Group spoken by a small community in
Opobo/Nkoro Local Government Area and Ijo Group. The Ijo group is a very large
language cluster whose varieties are spoken by Kalabari, Ibani, Okrika, Ogu-Bolo and
Nkoro (Williamsons and Ndimele 2002). The various languages and dialects actually
show that Rivers State is indeed, not only a ‘multilingual’ state, but is also ‘linguistically
complex’.
73
The linguistic classification of Rivers State prefigures a historical divide into two
major ancestral groupings; The Benue-Congo family and the Ijoid family (Alagoa &
Kpone-Tonwe 2002:173). The Igboid Branch comprising the Ikwerre, Ekpeye, Etche,
Ogba, Egbema and Ndoni who speak language similar to Igbo, suggest a genetic
relationship with the Igbo, although recent accounts have tended to adopting a history
of migration from Benin (Alagoa & Kpone-Tonwe). Studies by Kpone-Tonwe (1990)
link the Ogoni to Ibibio origin and migration from Ghana. Several other traditions of
origin among Rivers State lay claims to autochthony. These include the tradition of
origins of Andoni, Abua and Engenni (Alagoa & Tonwe 2002).
The indigenous African religious belief surrounding the Supreme Being (God
Almighty) among the people of Rivers State is rather long and complex. This is so
when one considers the cultural divergence of the people. For instance, while some
indigenous groups conceptualize God as male, others see God as a female, while in
some area, God is asexual. On the whole, there is everywhere a strong belief in the
Supreme Being, and is called by different names and tagged with different attributes,
which are in the main, influenced by the geographical and cultural environment of the
people (Tasie & Wotogbe-Weneka 2002:286).
There are also totemic beliefs in
different parts of Rivers State. Various religious feasts and festivals are celebrated all
over Rivers State. There are also various dance forms. Apart from the indigenous
religions of the people of Rivers State and Christianity, the other religions known to
have adherents in Rivers State are Islam, Eckankar, Harikrishna, Grail Movement,
Gurumaharaji and the Bahai Faith (Tasie & Wotogbe-Weneka 2002).
74
2.5.3 The Economy of Rivers State
Rivers State is one of the oil and gas producing states of Nigeria. Odje (2001) in
Onah and Nyewusira (2005:152) records that Rivers State is among the areas of highly
concentrated drilling and oil production activities. Thus, the economy of the state, like
every other state in Nigeria, is dependent on oil revenue. Port Harcourt, the capital of
Rivers State, is Nigeria’s second largest commercial and industrial centre and has the
second largest seaport in the country. It also has an international airport and marks the
Eastern terminal of Nigeria’s railway system. The state is the heart of Nigeria’s hydrocarbon industry and is responsible for over 48 percent of crude oil produced on-shore,
and almost 100 percent of the gas currently being exported to several countries in liquid
form (Rivers State Government Bulletin, 2003).
Majority of Rivers State people engage in farming and fishing. The Upland areas
constitute the ‘food-basket’ of the state while the Riverine areas constitute the ‘fishbasket’.
Other traditional occupations are canoe carving, craftwork, and trading
(Ayolagha & Onuegbu 2002:39).
As a matter of fact, Peters (2002) in Fedigha
(2007:42) observes that the exchange of fish for food crops between farming and
fishing communities has been ‘a key link between the diverse culture’ of Rivers State.
The most planted crop is cassava. Other crops produced in Rivers State can be subdivided into food crops and cash crops. Some of the food crops are, yams, plantain,
cocoyam and sweet potato. Major cash crops produced are palm oil, rubber and cocoa
(Ayolagha & Onuegbu 2002). Rivers State also has high concentration of marine and
forest resources that are sources of food, medicines, fuel, shelter and industrial raw
materials (Nyanayo 2002:68). Several fish species are also found in Rivers State.
75
They include but not limited to the following; Bonga, Sardine, Croaker, Catfish, Mullet,
Spanners, Sharks and Baracuda (Chinda 2002:109).
The production structure of Rivers State, at present, is about the same as that of
the rest of the country with agriculture, manufacturing and commercial enterprises,
services, oil industry and government bureaucracy being the main employers of labour
(Ayolagha & Onuegbu 2002). In the areas of income distribution, Fedigha (2007:42)
observes that there is high and widening rural-urban gap: urban-biased resources
allocation pattern
76
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
3.1
Method of Study
3.1.1 Sources and Method of Data Collection
In any research, collection of relevant data required for the investigation of
problems stated cannot be over-emphasized. Research results are meaningful when
accurate and relevant data on specific problems are logically and carefully assembled
(Nzeneri 1994:37).
The data for this study were obtained from both primary and secondary sources.
Primary Sources
There were two sources of gathering data for the study. They are: interviews and
participant observation.
i.
Interviews:
Interview is a survey instrument involving face-to-face interaction
between the seeker and the giver of information. It is used for gathering data on
people’s knowledge, values, preferences, beliefs and experiences. (Obasi
1999:165). We adopted interview as our major tool of collecting primary data
because, in the opinion of Anikpo (2006:71), interview ‘can yield deeper and more
reliable information than a questionnaire’. The tool enabled us acquire a deeper
understanding of any information through the respondents’ comments and
expressions. In our study, this involved direct communication and conversation
between the researcher and the provider or ‘givers’ of information. When and
where necessary, we used telephone conversation to elicit information.
77
We used both structured and unstructured interview schedule. The former
assisted us to maintain uniformity and sequence of question during interview
session while the latter enabled us to ask the interviewees question which do not
restrict their answers, such that they were encouraged to express their views freely
and elaborately. This gave us the opportunity and latitude for indepth investigation
into the issues under study. Though our initial questions in unstructured interview
schedule were pre-planned but subsequent ones were derived from answers to
previous ones. This certainly redirected our inquiry into more desirable areas on
the basis of emerging data. These processes provided us the rational basis for
data interpretation.
ii.
Participant observation: This method of data collection requires recording ‘what
actually happens while it is happening’ (Osuala 2005:149). Participant observation
is nurtured on the assumption that scientific knowledge is concerned with
observable experience (Ankpo 2006:7; Amadi et al 2003). The knowledge and
experience of the researcher, through regular interactions, with key officials of
Rivers State Government and some Local Government Councils between 2001
and 2004 provides good opportunities for generating reliable information. The
researcher within the said period was a Legislative Assistant in the Rivers State
House of Assembly and at a time was part of the Administrative Staff of the House
Committee on Local Government Affairs.
It is the committee that performs
oversight functions on local government councils.
The participation of the
researcher in the activities of this Committee was a way of gaining first hand
knowledge of how an arm of the state government interacts with local government
78
councils. The experiences and observations of the researcher, therefore, provided
direct and more objective information, as well as accurate description of activities
bordering on some aspects of state-local government relations in Rivers State.
Secondary Sources
White (1989) in Egobueze (2008:30) refers to secondary data as ‘data that have
already been collected’. The secondary data were obtained from Books, Journals,
Magazines, Periodicals, Newspapers, Government publications/documents, Symposia
and Workshop papers, Communique, Unpublished seminars and theses, and on-line
materials.
3.1.2 Method of Data Presentation and Analysis
Population of the Study
A population is made up of all conceivable elements, subjects or observation
relating to a particular phenomenon that a researcher is interested in studying or
describing (Obasi 1999; Asika 2006). The research population is conceived mostly
when one is dealing with behaviour characteristics or people’s opinion and therefore
needs to select a sample (Anikpo 2006). The population of this study reflected both the
state and local governments. The population of the state government comprises the
following:
i.
All elected Members, Legislative Assistants and Career civil servants of Rivers
State House of Assembly.
ii.
Ministry of Local Governments
iii.
Ministry of Finance
79
iv.
Members and Secretary of Local Government Service Commission and their
Auxiliary Staff.
v.
Members and Staff of State Independent Electoral Commission.
vi.
Office of the Auditor-General for Local Governments.
vii. Office of the Special Adviser to the Governor on Local Government Affairs.
These are institutions, ministries, commissions, departments, agencies and persons
directly involved in matters relating to state-local relations. The population is shown in
the table below:
S/N
Institutions / Ministries / Commissions /
Departments
No. of Political office holders
and career civil servants
1.
Rivers State House of Assembly
264
2.
Ministry of Local Government
200
3.
Ministry of Finance
1002
4.
Local Government Service Commission
52
5.
Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission
228
6.
Office of the Auditor-General for Local Government
45
7.
Office of the Special Adviser to the Governor on
10
Local Government Affairs
Total
1801
Sources: Office of the Head of Service, Office of the Clerk, RSHA and
Office of the Director, Public Affairs, RSIEC.
The population of Local governments, on the other hand, consists of all political
office holders and career civil servants in the twenty-three (23) local government
councils. The population is shown in the table below:
80
S/N
Local Government Council
Number of Career Number of Political
Civil servants
Office Holders
1.
OKRIKA
735
28
2.
AKUKU-TORU
621
34
3.
OYIGBO
516
27
4.
OGBA EGBEMA NDONI
717
33
5.
KHANA
665
29
6.
TAI
520
34
7.
OGU BOLO
586
28
8.
ABUA ODUAL
738
32
9.
OPOBO NKORO
190
17
10.
PORT HARCOURT
732
30
11.
AHOADA EAST
507
29
12.
ELEME
612
34
13.
ETCHE
823
26
14.
OBIO AKPOR
593
33
15.
OMUMA
429
25
16.
EMOHUA
734
31
17.
AHOADA WEST
367
23
18.
GOKANA
805
37
19.
ANDONI
772
24
20.
IKWERRE
776
29
21.
BONNY
493
23
22.
ASARI TORU
643
27
23.
DEGEMA
610
28
14184
661
TOTAL
Sources: Rivers State Local Government Service Commission and
Ministry of Local Government.
A combination of the two sets constituted the population of the study.
81
Sample and Sampling Procedure
A sample is precisely a part of the population, while the procedure for drawing
sample from population is known as sampling (Asika 2006). Sampling is basically used
when the population, in the phrase of Grupta (1982:314) is ‘infinitely large’.
The
population of our study, as enumerated above, may not be ‘infinitely large’, but it is
quite large. According to Osuala (2005), sampling is taking any portion of a population
as representative of that population.
We therefore, elicited information through
interviews on only a sample of this total population. A purposive sampling technique
was adopted to draw a total sample of forty (40) political office holders and career civil
servants, from the population as sample for the study. This is a type of non-probability
sampling that presupposes deliberateness in selecting the population elements to be in
the sample. It actually involves hand-picking desired sample elements to ensure that
such elements are considered (Anikpo 2006, Obasi 1999). Anikpo (2006:58) opines
that a major variant of this technique is known as ‘Expert Opinion’ where a person is
consulted specifically because he or she is supposed to be ‘the custodian of a
particular type of information’. Asika (2006:46) also believes that in choosing sample
elements the researcher is guided by what he considers typical cases which are most
likely to provide him with the requisite data or information. Therefore, our respondents
were picked on the basis of pre-determined criteria, mainly, custodians of information
on the operations of Joint Account Allocation Committee, Local Government Service
Commission, State Independent Electoral Commission, State House of Assembly, and
other institutions, ministries, agencies or departments involved in State-Local
Government administration.
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Respondents from institutions, ministries, commissions or departments that
functions as part or agents of the state government are sixteen (16). The distribution is
as follows:
i)
Rivers State House of Assembly (4 persons).
ii)
Ministry of Local Government (2 persons)
iii)
Ministry of Finance (2 persons)
iv)
Local Government Service Commission (2 persons).
v)
State Independent Electoral Commission (2 persons)
vi)
Office of Auditor-General for Local Government (2 persons)
vii)
Office of the Special Adviser to the Governor on Local Government (2 persons).
On the other hand, a total of twelve (12) Local Government Councils were
selected with four (4) from each of the three Senatorial Districts. Two (2) respondents
were selected from each of the 12 Local Government Councils, making respondents
from Local Government Councils twenty-four (24).
The disparity in the number of
respondents between the local government councils and the state government was due
to the wide ratio in the number of persons constituting the population in the two tiers. In
other words, the number of respondents was proportional to each tier’s share of the
total population. This informed the decision of uneven proportion of the two levels of
government in the sample.
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Method of Data Analysis
The method of data analysis used for primary data collected through interviews
and observations was mainly descriptive and qualitative. In descriptive analysis, proper
interpretation of data rests on proper evaluation of empirical or hard facts (Sidhu 2006).
It is a method in which the description of data and observations is not ordinarily
expressed in quantitative terms. But as Sidhu (2006:246) noted, it is not suggested
that numerical measures are never used, but that other means of description are
emphasized. In his remarks, the difference between qualitative and quantitative studies
is ‘not absolute but one of emphasis’. This informed our decision to also apply some
element of measurement, especially in the analysis of State Joint Local Government
Account. Thus, we used simple percentage as tools to describe and interpret the
administration of State Joint Local Government Account. Percentages are part of
statistical tools used to analyze research data. A hypothesis is validated if the views
expressed by 51-100% of the interviewees accept it. Conversely, a hypothesis is
invalidated if the views of 0-49% of the interviewees reject it.
We made use of content analysis in the interpretation of secondary data.
Obikezie (1990:81) quoted Berelson (1954) as saying that content analysis is ‘a
research technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative analysis and
description of the manifest content of communications’. As a method of analyzing
qualitative information, we used content analysis to determine the relative emphasis of
the various information (data) items on State-Local government relations we collected.
In other words, we took the communications produced and asked questions on the
contents.
Inferences were made based on the content of the communications.
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Therefore, government and non-governmental documents, textbooks, journals,
magazines, newspapers, unpublished theses and writings of previous researchers on
intergovernmental relations in general and state-local government relations in
particular, in the words of Kerlinger (1973:527), were ‘content analyzed’.
We adopted this technique to ascertain whether the data from documentary
sources support both the questions and hypotheses underlying the research. By so
doing, we align with views of Kerlinger (1973:526) that content analysis is a method of
observation and measurement.
85
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
The data presented have been obtained using two major strategies. First, the
primary information for the research was obtained from a descriptive analysis of
interviews which we conducted using purposive sampling technique. In other words,
the sample was selected for the interview based on the fact that they were considered
knowledgeable on the subject matter.
Second, we made a careful compilation of
published and unpublished studies, articles, reports and official documents considered
relevant to our study. The data obtained from the research questions which we used
for proving or disproving the hypotheses, which guided the study, are presented as
follows:
4.1
The Relationship between Provisions of the 1999 Constitution and the Rivers
State Local Government Law and the Status of the State And Local
Government Councils as tiers of Government
Most of our respondents affirm that the Constitution recognises and allocates
powers and functions to both the States and Local governments. This position is
premised on the listing of the States in Section 3 (1) and that of Local government
areas in Part I of the First Schedule. It suggest the constitutional recognition accorded
these tiers of government. They made reference to Part II of the Second Schedule
which contains the Concurrent List over which both the Federal and State governments
have concurrent powers and the Fourth Schedule which outlined the functions of Local
government Councils.
On the question of the manner of allocation of power between the State and
Local governments, majority of the respondents observed a contradiction in the
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provisions of the Constitution. Prominent in this contradiction is that while the functions
of local governments are specified in the Fourth Schedule, local governments can only
exercise their authority in accordance with enabling legislation passed by the state
government. This is contained in Section 7 (1) which reads;
The system of local government 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.
By the above provision, the respondents are in agreement that local governments are
invariably made subordinate to the state since local government councils can only
come into existence and function by the legislation of the State.
One of our
respondents, the chairman of Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees
(NULGE), Omuma Local Government Council, is of the view that ‘the return of the local
government under the residual Legislative List in the 1999 Constitution challenges the
third tier status of local government’. In fact, Ibeanu (2008:8) observed that the idea for
subjugation of local government as an appendage of state government was introduced
first in 1979 Constitution and ratified in 1999 Constitution. A former member of the
Rivers State House of Assembly we interviewed claimed that Section 7(1) ascribes on
the State Legislature ‘the power of life and death over local government councils’. He
said this is what informed the enactment of certain provisions in the Rivers State Local
Government Law that empowers the House of Assembly to ‘call the tune and the local
government councils either quietly play or protest in secret’.
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From the aggregate views of our respondents, although the Constitution
guarantees the systems of democratically elected local government councils, it remains
a state responsibility to ensure their existence, structure, composition, finance and
functions. The Former House of Assembly member who is also a lawyer captures the
contradictions in these remarks, ‘the local governments are recognized by the
constitution but derive their power of existence from the state government’. Roberts
(1999:63) sums up the contradictions thus;
The 1999 Constitution might have recognized local
governments as a third tier of government to which specific
functions are allocated, but this is only as an integral part of
the state government.
Most respondents, especially political office holders at the local government councils
are of the opinion that the nature of power relations between the State and Local
governments depicts a dependency relation in which the local government is the prey,
exploited and vanquished.
They posit that the overall power pattern is in strict
conformity to ‘Dillon’s Rule’ which promotes ‘the doctrine of total dependence’.
Dillon’s Rule, as stated by Chukuemeka & Uche (2005:317), was named after
Justice Dillon of Supreme Court of Iowa who declared that;
Municipal corporations owe their origin to and derive their
powers and right wholly from the (state) legislature. It
breathes in the breath of life, without which they cannot
exist. As it creates, so it may destroy, it may abridge and
control.
By this rule, local governments are completely dependent on states for their existence,
powers, structures and personnel. The Director of Planning, Research and Statistics in
the Ministry of Local government alluded to Dillon’s rule when he admitted that the
structure, composition and functions of local government is influenced by political
88
actors at the state level who have the constitutional authority and responsibility for
determining the main features of the local government system. Roberts (1999:59) also
affirms that ‘local governments are creatures of the state, subject to creation and
abolition at the unfettered discretion of the state’.
On the provisions of the Rivers State Local Government Law, most respondents
interviewed, especially former and present members of local government legislative
councils consider most sections of the Law as a sham designed to continually control
the affairs of the local government councils by the Rivers State government.
The
sections identified by our respondents as being obnoxious to the existence,
independence and survival of local governments in Rivers State include the following,
a)
Section 4(1) which provides for the appointment of Caretaker Committee for Local
Government Councils in violation of Section 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution that
guarantees for a ‘democratically elected local government councils’.
b)
Section 13(5) and 9(b) that grants enormous powers to the State House of
Assembly in the removal of Chairman or Vice Chairman of a local government
council.
c)
Section 10 that empowers the House of Assembly to suspend a chairman or vice
chairman who is under investigation for gross misconduct.
The section also
empowers the State Legislature to order that the accounts of a local government
council whose chairman is being investigated be frozen if the House of Assembly
so resolves.
d)
Section 64(1) which provides for the Rivers State House of Assembly to inquire
into the affairs of the councils unhindered. Sub-section (2) and (3) also empower
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the Governor to dissolve elected local government council with the approval of
two-thirds majority of members of the State House Assembly.
The combined effects of Section 64 (1) (2) and (3) of the Rivers State Local
Government Law of 1999 gives the institutions of the state government the power to
control, dismiss, dissolve and institute inquiry into the general administration of any
local government council.
The Legislative Council of Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local
government at a media briefing in Port Harcourt on 26th January, 2010 described
Section 64 of Rivers State Local Government Law as ‘a monster that devours local
government councils’.
The general views of our respondents therefore is that while the provisions of
1999 Constitution and the Rivers State Local Government Law preserves and protects
the status of the state government as a tier of government, the Local government
council is divested of the main features and authority associated with the phrase ‘tier of
government’.
4.2
The Extent of Control and Manipulation of the Administrative Structure of
Local Government Councils by the State Government
The questions posed to our respondents had to, basically, do with how the state
governments institutions exercise control over political office holders and career civil
servants in the local government councils. In the course of our study, we identified the
following as key state government’s institutions and organs for exercising control over
the local government councils.
a) Rivers State House of Assembly:
Pursuant to Section 7 (1) of the 1999
Constitution, the Rivers State House of Assembly enacted the Rivers State Local
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Government Law.
The law makes provision for the establishment, structure,
composition, finance, and functions of local government councils in Rivers State.
The State Legislature also performs oversight functions over the local
government councils through its Standing House Committee on Local
Government and Chieftaincy Affairs.
b) The Ministry of Local Government: The Ministry is responsible for supervising
the functions and activities of political office holders in the local government
councils.
The
Ministry
also
monitors
the
preparation,
approval
and
implementation of Annual Budgets of local government councils. The permanent
Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government is also the Secretary of Joint
Account Allocation Committee (JAAC).
c) The Ministry of Finance:
The office of Accountant-General of the State is
responsible for the administration of State Joint Local Government Account.
There is an office known as Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) office. It
is headed by JAAC Accountant that prepares payment schedules of Federal
allocations to local government councils. The Commissioner for Finance and
Accountant-General of the State are the Chairman and Vice Chairman of Joint
Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) respectively.
d) Local Government Service Commission: The Commission which is not listed
in the 1999 Constitution as one of the commissions under Section 197 that shall
be established for each state of the Federation is, however, provided for in part
VI of the Rivers State Local Government Law. The Chairman and Members of
the Commission are appointed by the Governor, subject to confirmation by a
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resolution of the House of Assembly. The Governor in Section 47 (a) and (b) of
the Rivers State Local Government Law makes regulations providing for the
function and organization of the work of the Commission. Section 48 (1) gives
the Commission the following powers;
The power to appoint persons to hold or act in offices in a
local government council, including power to make
appointments and to dismiss and to exercise disciplinary
control over persons holding or acting in such offices are
vested in the Commission.
e) Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission:
The state government,
through legislation, established the Commission. The Chairman and Members of
the Commission are appointed by the Governor, subject to confirmation by a
resolution of the House of Assembly.
Under Section 5 of Rivers State
Independent Electoral Commission Law of 2000, the main function of the
Commission is ‘to organize, undertake and supervise all elections to Local
Government Councils within the state’.
f) Office of Auditor General for Local Governments:
There is an Auditor
General For Local Government appointed by the Governor. This is provided for
in Section 114 of the Rivers State Local Government Law. Under this section,
the accounts kept by every local government council shall be subject to audit by
the Auditor General for Local Governments.
The Auditor General For Local
Government is empowered to conduct periodic audit of accounts of Local
government councils and submit the report of such audit to the House of
Assembly for consideration.
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g) Office of the Special Adviser to the Governor on Local Government and
Chieftaincy Affairs: The Special Adviser is assigned the responsibilities of coordinating the activities and policies of the Governor on matters relating to local
government administration.
The Special Adviser acts, in the main, as the
Governor’s Liaison officer to all the local government councils in the state.
h) Local Government Pensions Board: The Board is responsible for pension
administration of retired local government staff. The Chairman and Secretary of
the Board are appointed by the Governor. The Chairman of Local Government
Service Commission is also the chairman of Local Government Pension Board.
All staff and officers of the Commission are appointed, promoted and disciplined
by Rivers State Civil Service Commission.
The organs, ministries, commissions and departments of the state
government presented above play far-reaching superintending roles in the
administration of local government councils. Most of our respondents agree that
it is through these offices that the state government encroaches on the
administration of local government councils by interfering directly or indirectly.
The House Assembly is believed, by most respondents, to be usurping the
powers of the Legislative Councils of the local governments. A Former Leader of
Abua/Oduah Legislative Council, Hon. Isaiah Oni, expressed the frustration of
the Legislative Council in these remarks;
The usurpation of the functions of the legislative councils of
local government by the Rivers State House of Assembly
amounts to making the councillors only watchers rather
than active players in the political scene of the local
government system. The House of Assembly arrogated so
much power to itself to the extent that our functions have
93
only become that of ‘siddon-look’. The only delight is that
councillors are paid their salaries and allowances while the
tenure of office last. I simply regard the overbearing
tendencies of the House of Assembly as intergovernmental
albatross.
The expressions of the former leader were corroborated by that of Secretary, House of
Assembly Committees on Education, Power, Transport and Local Government. He is
of the view that the subordination of local governments to state legislations by letters of
section 7 (1) of the 1999 Constitution has ‘engendered unbridled interference of the
State House of Assembly in the affairs of local government councils’. This arrangement
according to him, smacks of ‘reckless disregard for the essence of local government’.
In the same vein, our respondents described the establishment of Local
Government Service Commission as a strategy adopted by the state government in
politicizing personnel management in the local governments.
A former Director of
Training and Research in the Commission revealed to us that ‘personnel management
by the Commission is not based on staff needs of the local governments, budgetary
provision and merit system but on patronage to party loyalists and supporters’. Many
other respondents identified and isolated the Local Government Service Commission
as the principal channel of state government’s incursions, interference and
encumbrances in local government administration.
This appears incontrovertible
because from the revelations of the Director of Administration in the Commission, the
chairman and members who served in the Commission between 1999 and 2007 are
staunch members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and political associates of
key political office holders in the state.
They are; Obede Nga (Chairman), Miller
94
Oforibika (member), Angelus Ogbonda (member), Princess Tamalu (member) and
Azubuike Wanjoku (member).
Concerning their views on the role and independence of Rivers State
Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) during the conduct of March 2004 local
government elections, two Electoral officers who served in Rivers State East Senatorial
District simply averred that RSIEC was used by prominent State government officials to
foist their preferred candidates as Chairmen and councillors in the local government
councils. The chairman of Alliance For Democracy (AD) in Rivers State, Mr. Uche
Ichenwo, corroborates the views of the Electoral officers when he said that RSIEC
merely ‘surrendered’ the electoral process to the ‘state PDP mafias in a bid to ‘ensure
that lackeys of the state government are positioned to run the affairs of the Local
government councils’ (Beacon Newspaper May 24, 2004).
The aggregate view of most respondents we interviewed on the conduct of
March 2004 local government election is that the process was characterized by lack of
transparency and sheer manipulation, by forces in power at the state level. As a matter
of fact, the concept of ‘totalitarian style democracy’ made reference to by Wobonda
(2006) is believed to have been very manifest in the said local government election.
The level of desperation displayed by politicians at the state level in their bid to seize
local government apparatus by foisting stooges as local government chairmen is
reflected in the expressions of the Leader of All Nigeria’s People Party (ANPP) in
Rivers State, Mr. Arthur Uchendu. He said it was a ‘felony’ for anybody seeking for
political office to local government council to differ with the state government on political
or policy perspectives.
He further avers that ‘a declaration of such ambition
95
automatically qualifies the declarant an enemy of the state government and his life
could be endangered’ (Port Harcourt Express, September 18, 2004). This is why, in
the expressions of one of the Electoral officers, the PDP, which is the ruling party in the
state recorded a ‘moonslide’ victory by winning all 23 chairmanship positions and 324
councillorship seats in the state’.
The actual electoral contest, according to the
Electoral officer, took place during the local government primaries of the PDP while the
local government election in which 18 other political parties participated was a mere
symbolic exercise.
When we inquired why RSIEC displayed so much partisanship, the Electoral
officer answered thus; ‘Is the Chairman, members and 23 Electoral officers of the
Commission not active members of the PDP? Again, he asked ‘How could I have
become Electoral officer if not for my active service as Secretary of PDP in my ward
between 1998–2002?’. In justifying the partisanship of officials of RSIEC, the Electoral
officer observed that no section of Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission Law
of 2000 precludes the chairman, and members of the Commission as well as Electoral
officers of the 23 Local Government Areas from being card-carrying members of any
registered political party.
In fact, it was credibly speculated that the chairman of
RSIEC, Sam Sam Jaja, was among the persons to be nominated as the DeputyGovernorship candidate of the PDP in 1998 gubernatorial election in Rivers State. Dr.
Alafuro Epelle, a close relation and associate of RSIEC Chairman confirmed to us that
it was not mere speculation as the story was true. Other members who served in the
Commission also had deep affiliation to PDP. This actually made it impossible for the
96
Commission to be insulated from the political manipulation of the PDP and the state
government.
We were told in the series of interviews and interactions we had with active
politicians in the various local government areas that every chairmanship candidate of
the PDP had the final endorsement of the Governor before the election. To show the
strong political affinity some of the chairmen had with key officials of Rivers State
Government, we gathered that the chairman of Ikwerre Local Government Council was
before his election the Personal Assistant to the Speaker of the House of Assembly.
The Chairman of Port Harcourt City Council was a member of House of Assembly and
close political associate of the Speaker of the House of Assembly. The Chairman of
Opobo/Nkoro was an active member of Vanguard of Opobo Nation (VON) which Sam
Sam Jaja founded and led until his appointment as Chairman of RSIEC. The Chairmen
of Okrika and Ogu-Bolo Local Government Councils were said to be sponsored by the
Secretary to the State Government. We also gathered from interviewees that the
Chairmen of Etche, Abua-Odual and Degama were foisted on their various Local
Government Areas by the Commissioner of Sports, Commissioner of Finance and
Deputy Speaker of the State House of Assembly respectively. A former member of
Rivers State House of Assembly, who served in the House Committee on Local
Government and Chieftaincy Affairs pointedly admitted that the ‘fierce and vicious
battles that raged in the State PDP under Gov. Odili’s administration mainly revolved
around the struggle for the control of local government administration by high-ranking
politicians in the State’. Ichella (2006:12), corroborated the views of the Former
Legislator when he wrote that what played out in March 2004 local government election
97
was ‘the triumph of godfather-godson phenomenon’ in virtually all the local government
areas.
The Ministry of Local Government, Office of Auditor-General For Local
Government, and Office of the Special Adviser to the Governor on Local Government,
in the perception of most respondents, is explored by the state government to exercise
stringent control over local government functionaries. The most incisive expression on
this perception was offered by the Former Special Adviser to the Governor on Local
Government and Chieftaincy Affair (1999 – 2003). In the words of the former Special
Adviser ‘the Ministry of Local Government and my office exist to exercise and deepen
political and bureaucratic control of the local government councils by the State
Governor’. His submission represents the summary of what other respondents said.
4.3
Administration of State Joint Local Government Account and Financial
Autonomy of the Local Government Councils
The above research question is premised on the fact that the study of fiscal
relations provides one of the most important keys to understanding the reality of
intergovernmental relations.
As Ayoade (2005:53) brilliantly posits, ‘fiscal relation
reflects the nature of any federation’. Ogundu (2004:102) on his part declared that
‘nothing more clearly betokens local government subjugation to the state government’
than fiscal relations. The views of our respondents on the propriety or otherwise of
‘State Joint Local Government Account’ is that, it entrusts unto the state government,
‘the yam-and-knife authority’ over local government funds. Some respondents are of
the opinion that the provision for ‘State Joint Local Government Account’ has made
local government councils become ‘addicted’ to ‘intergovernmental begging’. The local
98
governments are treated as colonies of the state government such that local
government chairmen, according to a former chairman of one of the local government
councils in Rivers West Senatorial District, constantly go to Rivers State Government
House in Port Harcourt ‘on bended knees to kiss the ring’. A Treasurer who has served
in three local government councils affirmed in an interview with us that local
government councils ‘have been so financially suffocated through State Joint Local
Government Account to the extent that they exist merely as staff salary outposts’. The
Treasurer, who attended technical session of Joint Account Allocation Committee
(JAAC) for two years described the State Joint Local Government Account as ‘funnel of
corruption’ for state government officials who are ‘at the corridors of local government
finances’. Other respondents such as Heads of Personnel Management and Heads of
Local Government Administration said the Governor, through his nominees in Joint
Local Government Account Allocation Committee, device several ways to expropriate
statutory allocations to local government councils. They affirm that state government
officials go to the extent of compelling local government council chairmen to sign as
having collected the full amount standing to their credit in the Joint Account when in
fact, nothing of sort happened. They also said some expenses incurred by the state
government are charged to the account of local government councils, especially
expenses related to party conventions, presidential visits, pet projects of the Governor’s
wife and donations made by the state government.
On their part, Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) in BelloImam & Edu (2004:463) believes that the establishment of State Joint Local
Government Account ‘negates both the spirit and letter of direct funding of local
99
governments from the Federation Account which could be abused by paddled
deductions from the account for spurious purposes’.
Onah (2004:195) affirms the
above situation as she comments that state governments not only fail to remit 10% of
their internally generated revenue to local governments as prescribed by Law, they also
‘tamper with 20 percent federal allocation made to local governments via the State Joint
Local Government Account’. Most of our respondents expressed the view that the
failure of the state government to remit 10% of their internally generated revenue to
local government council is a breach of local government’s fundamental constitutional
entitlement and a clog in the wheel of developing the institution of local government.
The respondents also observed that the encumbrances of the state government on
local government finances results in weak performance of the local government
councils which the state government agencies exploit to conduct investigation or inquiry
into the affairs of local governments under section 128 of the Constitution. According to
an Assistant Director in the office of Auditor General for Local Government, the
situation ‘creates a vicious circle in which local government councils are constantly
vilified by the state government’.
Chikendu & Nwanegbo (2005:199) further posit that the appointment of AuditorGeneral For Local Government and the submission of the outcome of local government
audit to the State House of Assembly ‘open up avenue for the state to have
overbearing input into local government finances’. The comments of another former
local government chairman in Rivers East Senatorial District reinforces the views of
most respondents that the state government officials, under the auspices of state Joint
100
Local Government Account, largely used Federal allocations to local government
councils as slush funds. In his words;
The Former Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili,
treated allocations from Federal Account to Local
government councils as his personal funds, which he used
to finance his political ambition of becoming the President
of Nigeria. This is basically why most local government
councils in our dispensation lacked the financial capacity to
function as administrative institution for efficient provision
of services to our people.
He further revealed that local government councils where internally generated revenue
was meager and had to depend totally on federal allocations ‘were the worst hit by the
financial misdemeanors of the Governor and his cabinet’.
A former Head of personnel Management in Obio/Akpor local government
council and presently a Head of Local Government Administration in one of the
Councils in Rivers South-East said the problem of diversion of local government
allocation arises from failure of the state government to see such allocations, stricto
sensu, as constitutional and legitimate share of revenue to local government councils.
He said most state governments choose to rather see local government allocations as
grants-in-aids, which are financial subsides given by federal and state governments to
assist local governments. He traced this thinking to ‘the warped interpretation of local
government as local administration’. He concludes thus;
Local Government Councils were used more during the
Second Republic and decades of military regime as
instrument of party control and as units of administrative
operation, hence they were de facto local units or
administration rather than a tier of local government. There
is yet to be a paradigm shift since the return to civil rule in
1999.
101
Several other respondents agree that the submissions of the Head of Local
Government Administration are the reasons why statutory allocations to local
government council are regarded as a ‘hand-out’ at the behest of the state government.
Fiscal relations between states and local governments are provided for in the
1999 Constitution and the Rivers State Local Government Law.
Section 7 (6) (b)
prescribes that:
The House of Assembly of a state shall make provisions for
statutory allocation of public revenue for local government
councils within the state.
Again, Section 162 (6) provides that;
Each state shall maintain a special account to be called
‘State Joint Local Government Account’ into which shall be
paid all allocation to the local government councils of the
state from the Federation Account and from the
government of the state.
Section 69 (a) of the Rivers State Local Government Law stated the above provision
verbatim without prescribing the operational procedure of the Account. Pursuant to
sub-section 7 of 162 of the Constitution, Section 69 (b) of the Rivers State Local
Government Law provides that;
That State Government shall allocate 10% of its internally
generated revenue to the Local Government Councils
within the State.
The 10% of state internally generated revenue is to be paid into the State Joint Local
Government Account and allocated to the various local governments in accordance
with formula for distributing federal Allocations to local government councils.
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In the course of our study, we discovered that there was no legislation from the
Rivers State House of Assembly between 1999–2007 complying with Section 162 (8) of
the Constitution which states that;
The amount standing to the credit of local government
council of a state shall be distributed among the local
government councils of that state on such terms and in
such manner as may be prescribed by the House of
Assembly of that state.
The provision empowers the state Legislature to prescribe the formula for allocating
funds in the State Joint Local Government Account to local governments. We were
however informed by the Director of Planning, Research and Statistics in the Ministry of
Local Government that the legal instrument which governed the administration of State
Joint Local Government Account in Rivers State between 1999 and 2007 was the
‘Allocation of Revenue Act’ of 1982 enacted by the Federal government.
In line with Section 7 of the ‘Allocation of Revenue Act’ which provides for the
‘Establishment of Joint Local Government Account Committee for each state’ the State
Joint Local Government Account Allocation Committee in Rivers State comprise the
following members;
(a) The Commissioner for Finance: Chairman.
(b) Accountant-General for State: Vice Chairman and Head of Technical Section.
(c) Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Local Government: Secretary
(d) Special Adviser to The Governor on Finance: Member
(e) Chairman of the twenty-three (23) Local Government Councils as members.
Section 9 (2) of the ‘Allocation to Revenue Act’ makes provision for compliance to
103
the Act through a report by Accountant-General of the State to the House of
Assembly and the National Assembly. It states thus;
Not later than ninety days following the end of each
financial year, the Accountant-General of each state shall
report to the House of Assembly of the State and each
House of the National Assembly on the payments made to
each local government council in the state and stating
whether or not the payments made were correctly made
under this Act and under the relevant law of the state
governing such payments.
In the interviews we had with Director of Planning, Research and Statistics in the
Ministry of Local Government as well as JAAC Accountant, Office of the Accountant
General For State, we were informed that the deductions made by the State
government from Federal Allocations to Local government councils include the
following;
(a) 5% for Government recognized Traditional Rulers: Section 68 of Rivers State
Local Government (Amendment) Law of 2001 provides for payment of 2% of all
revenue accruing to local government councils to traditional rulers in the Local
government area. It was increased to 5% in the Amendment Law of 2002.
(b) 1% for training of Local Government staff
(c) 15% Pension Fund for retired Local government staff: This is provided for in Rivers
State Edict No.6 of 1987.
Therefore, total deductions made at JAAC meeting from federal allocations to Local
Government Councils was 16% in 2000, 18% in 2001, and 21% between 2002 and
2007.
We conclude our data presentation and analysis with three tables that reflect the
pattern and outcome of the administration of State Joint Local Government Account.
104
Table 4.1 shows State Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and 10% of State share to
Selected Local Government Councils. Table 4.2 shows Federal allocations to local
government councils, and actual amount received by local government councils after
Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) meetings. Table 4.3 shows Approved
Estimates of local government councils and Actual receipts.
While Table 4.1 is
intended to show that the state government does not remit 10% of state internally
generated revenue to local government councils, Table 4.2 shows that the state
government diverts Federal allocations to local government councils. Table 4.3, on its
part, reveals that statutory allocations, through JAAC, leads to poor budget
implementation in local government councils. The tables cover the period between
2000 and 2006. A total of fifteen (15) local government councils out of the twenty-three
(23) in Rivers State were selected. We selected five (5) from each of the three (3)
Senatorial Districts. Simple Random Sampling technique was adopted in the selection
of these local government councils.
105
TABLE 4.1: STATE INTERNALLY GENERATED REVENUE (IGR) AND 10% OF STATE SHARE TO SELECTED LOCAL
GOVERNMENT COUNCILS (2000-2005)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
STATE IGR /
10% SHARE
TO LOCAL
GOVT
COUNCILS
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
TOTAL
STATE
INTERNALLY
GEN. REV.
10% DUE
LOCAL GOVT
COUNCIL
AMOUNT
ALLOCATED TO
OKRIKA
AMOUNT
ALLOCATED TO
PORT
HARCOURT
AMOUNT
ALLOCATED TO
IKWERRE
AMOUNT
ALLOCATED TO
OBIO/AKPOR
AMOUNT
ALLOCATED TO
EMOHUA
AMOUNT
ALLOCATED TO
ABUA/ODUAL
AMOUNT
ALLOCATED TO
AKUKU-TORU
AMOUNT
ALLOCATED TO
BONNY
AMOUNT
ALLOCATED TO
OGBA/EGBEMA/
NDONI
5,154,133,292.99
=N=
7,393,703,691.47
=N=
8,745,098,268.83
=N=
12,364,129,761.10
=N=
15,655,567,558.20
=N=
18,778,834,398.34
=N=
67,991,466,968.00
=N=
515,413,329.30
=N=
739,390,369.10
=N=
874,509,826.90
=N=
1,236,412,976.00
=N=
1,565,556,756.00
=N=
1,877,883,440.00
=N=
6,799,146,697.00
=N=
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
1,000,000.00
8,900,000.00
NIL
9,900,000.00
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
10
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
AMOUNTED
ALLOCATED
TO AHOADA
WEST
AMOUNT
ALLOCATED
TO OYIGBO
AMOUNTED
ALLOCATED
TO TAI
AMOUNT
ALLOCATED
TO ELEME
AMOUNT
ALLOCATED
TO OMUMA
AMOUNT
ALLOCATED
TO KHANA
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
8,000,000.00
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
NIL
8,000,000.00
8,000,000.00
-
-
1,000,000.00
8,900,000.00
-
17,900,000.00
Source: Computed from Figures obtained from Local Government Submissions to National Economic Intelligence
Committee, Abuja, Rivers State Board of Internal Revenue, Port Harcourt and Ministry of Budget and Economic
Planning, Port Harcourt.
107
From the above table, the total State Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) between 2000 – 2005 is 67,991,466,968.00
billion naira. 10% of this amount which is due local government councils is 6,799,146, 697.00 billion naira. Out of this amount,
only an insignificant 17,900,000.00 million naira was allocated to the selected 15 local government councils in the state. The
state government, therefore, diverted or appropriated the sum of 6,781,246,697.00 billion naira statutory share of local
government councils from State Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in six years. If the diverted 6,781,246,697.00 billion naira
was to be shared on equal basis to the 15 local government councils in the table, each local government would have received
the sum of 452,083,113.10 million naira.
108
Table 4.2 shows Annual figures of Federal Allocation to selected local government councils and Actual Receipts after
Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) Meetings. Analysis of the table reveals that Federal allocations to local government
councils, in specific years, were diverted or appropriated by the state government through State Joint Local Government
Account. We observed that there were instances where Actual Receipts after JAAC are higher than Federal Allocation in some
local government councils. They include 2000 (Omuma): 2002 (Okrika, Obio/Akpor, Akuku-Toru, Ahoada West): 2004 (Tai):
2005 (Obio/Akpor). While the case of 2002 can be explained by the non-availability of figures of Federal allocation for February,
that of 2000, 2004 and 2005 are either as a result of errors in the figures presented to National Economic Intelligence
Committee by the local government councils involved or a confirmation of the earlier claims by a former chairman of council, in
an interview with us, that state government officials, sometimes, compelled local government officials to sign for monies they
did not actually receive.
109
It should be noted that statutory deductions made at JAAC from Federal Allocation to local government council in 2000
was 16% (15% pension fund and 1% training fund).
Statutory deduction in 2001 was 18% (15% pension fund, 2% for
traditional rulers and 1% training fund). Between 2002 and 2005, statutory deduction was 21% (15% pension fund, 5% for
traditional rulers and 1% training fund). The table is analyzed as follows:
i) 2000:
Federal Allocation (3,163,880,269.12) – Actual Receipt after JAAC (2,423,037,409.62)
=
740,842,860
740,842,860 x 100
3,163,880,269.12
= 23.4%
23.4% - 16% (statutory deduction)
= 7.4%
The result shows that the state government diverted or appropriated 7.4% of Federal allocation to the 15 selected local
government councils in 2000.
ii) 2001:
Federal Allocation (3,387,539,254.01) – Actual Receipt after JAAC (2,270,006,558.26)
= 1,117,532,696
1,117532,696 x 100
3,387,539,254.01
110
= 33%
33% - 18% (statutory deduction)
= 15%
The result shows that 15% of Federal allocation to the 15 selected local government councils was diverted by the state
government in 2001.
iii) 2002
Federal Allocation (6,078,065,793.70) – Actual Receipt after JAAC (4,026,230,335.76)
= 2,051,835,458
2,051,835,458 x 100
6,078,065,793.70
= 34%
34% - 21% (statutory deduction)
= 13%
From the result, 13% of federal allocation to the 15 selected local government councils was diverted by the state government in
2002.
iv) 2003:
Federal Allocation (8,622,350,085.60) – Actual Receipt after JAAC (4,331,442,193.54)
= 4,290,907,892
4,290,907,892 X 100
8,622,350,085.60
111
= 50%
50% - 21% (statutory deduction)
= 29%
The result shows that the state government diverted 29% of federal allocation to the 15 selected local government councils in
2003.
v) 2004:
Federal Allocation (11,025,489,537.24) – Actual Receipt after JAAC (6,877,930.016.71)
= 4,147,559,514
4,147,558,514 x 100
11,025,489,537.24
= 38%
33% - 21% (statutory deduction)
= 17%
The result shows that the state government diverted 17% of federal allocations to the 15 selected local government councils in
2004.
vi) 2005:
Federal Allocation (12,868,424,902) – Actual Receipt after JAAC (10,084,710,385.92)
= 2,783,714,520
2,782,714,520 x 100
112
12,868424,902.90
= 22%
22% - 21% (statutory deduction)
= 1%
The result of 2005 shows that the state government did not divert or appropriate federal allocations to the 15 selected local
government councils.
The analysis of table 4.2 reveals that while no diversion of federal allocation to the 15 selected local government councils
was established in 2005, 7.4%, 15%, 13%, 29% and 17% of federal allocations to these councils were diverted in 2000, 2001,
2002, 2003 and 2004 respectively.
113
TABLE 4.3: APPROVED ESTIMATES (BUDGETS) OF SELECTED LOCAL GOVERNMENT COUNCILS, ACTUAL RECEIPTS AFTER
JOINT ACCOUNT ALLOCATION COMMITTEE (JACC) SESSIONS AND PERCENTAGE OF BUDGET DEFICIT.
S/N
LOCAL
GOVERNMENT
COUNCILS
2004
APPROVED
ACTUAL
ESTIMATES
RECEIPTS
AFTER JAAC
2005
882,672,481.00
478,920,000.00
45%
811,020,219.00
667,790,000.00
17%
944,664,556.80
733,780,000.00
22%
1,615,981,740.00
749,484,946.00
54%
1,800,301,261.00
1,200,694,719.00
33%
1,999,467,999.00
1,578,304,176.00
21%
340,176,577.57
-
835,586,485.00
588,884,005.10
30%
998,700,000.00
286,474,027.90
71%
N
ACTUAL
RECEIPTS
AFTER JAAC
N
PERCENTAGE
(%) OF
BUDGET
DEFICIT
APPROVED
ESTIMATES
N
ACTUAL
RECEIPTS
AFTER JAAC
PERCENTAGE
(%) OF
BUDGET
DEFICIT
N
N
APPROVED
ESTIMATES
2006
PERCENTAGE
(%) OF
BUDGET
DEFICIT
N
1
Okrika
2
Port Harcourt
3
Ikwerre
4
Obio/Akpor
885,000,000.00
728,961,226.00
18%
1,843,840,131.00
1,134,995,842.00
38%
2,306,000,000.00
1,372,496,382.96
40%
5
Emohua
792,194,495.00
511,392,991.83
34%
979,215,321.00
707,625,160.20
28%
1,449,117,600.00
747,706,934.74
48%
6
Abua/Odual
637,850,000.00
413,891,257.81
35%
977,630,000.00
603,267,137.70
38%
1,327,563,313.00
718,167,633.81
50%
7
Akuku-Toru
642,847,000.00
428,495,000.00
33%
889,136,000.00
714,355,000.00
20%
1,290,631,635.00
8
Bonny
750,121,188.68
442,577,494.39
41%
978,688,626.00
625,214,921.46
36%
1,412,877,500.00
590,543,347.72
58%
9
Ogba/Egbema/
1,258,897,094.00
473,383,067.00
62%
1,192,200,070.00
697,580,902.00
41%
1,873,940,000.00
900,114,959.00
52%
N.A
N.A
-
Ndoni
10
Ahoada West
470,399,464.40
359,940,000.00
23%
635,044,704.00
539,490,000.00
15%
830,511,881.40
N.A
11
Oyigbo
684,925,411.64
371,427,360.00
46%
794,755,748.00
319,494,418.60
60%
1,274,291,299.32
12
Tai
516,419,570.00
636,831,411.00
Surplus
638,318,138.00
715,095,518.42
Surplus
862,951,359.00
13
Eleme
965,719,159.00
305,593,205.31
68%
977,659,869.00
482,092,344.20
51%
823,845,914.00
686,662,527,82
17%
14
Omuma
516,468,006.00
296,105,479.20
43%
708,850,000.00
503,800,417.23
29%
733,943,000.00
623,088,720.19
15%
15
Khana
959,640,000.00
340,750,000.00
64%
1,150,000,000.00
584,330,000.00
49%
1,200,700,000.00
787,468,000.00
34%
418,610,000.00
N.A
67%
-
N.A: Not Available
Source: Ministry of Local Government & Chieftaincy Affairs, Department of Local Government (Budget Section) Port Harcourt, and Local
Government Submissions to National Economic Intelligence Committee (NEIC), Abuja
114
The above table shows the Approved Estimates of 15 selected Local
Government Councils, Actual Revenues received after Joint Account
Allocation Committee (JAAC) meetings and Percentage of budget deficit
over a period of three years. It should be noted that statutory allocation is
the major source of revenue to local government councils. As a matter of
fact, Olaniyonu (2007) posits that statutory allocation constitute over 95% of
source of local government revenues in Nigeria. A close examination of the
table reveals huge budget deficit in almost all the local government
councils. For instance, over the three years period under review, it was only
Tai local government council that recorded surplus budget in 2004 and
2005. To buttress the point, local government councils such as Okrika,
Bonny, Port Harcourt, Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, Oyigbo and Omuma recorded
between 40%-54% budget deficit in 2004, while Eleme and Khana had 68%
and 64% deficits respectively. In 2005, all but one (Tai) local government
councils recorded budgets deficits ranging from 15%-60%. The same
budget deficit is discernible in 2006. In fact, Eleme and Ikwerre had budget
deficit of 67% and 71% respectively in 2006. Therefore, table 4.3 reveals
that statutory allocations received through Joint Account Allocation
Committee
(JAAC)
are
grossly
inadequate
for
the
execution
implementation of budgetary provisions of local government councils.
104
or
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
5.1
The Effect Of 1999 Constitution and Rivers State Local Government
Law on the Status of the State and Local Governments as Tiers of
Government
The powers of the Rivers State House of Assembly to make Law for the
‘establishment,
structure,
composition,
finances
and
functions’
of
local
government councils is derived from Section 7 (1) of the Constitution. Pursuant
to this section, the Rivers State House of Assembly enacted the Rivers State
Local Government Law. The local government system conceived by the 1999
Constitution and given effect by the Rivers State Local Government Law is, by all
intents and purposes, an agency of the State government or at best a local
administration (Wobonda 2006).
The first finding of this study is that the Rivers State Local Government
Law, enacted under the provision of Section 7 (1) of the Constitution is designed
to entrench totalitarianism in state-local government relations. The position of
Wheare (1963) in Jinadu (1979:21) is that since federalism is a form of
constitutional government which sets limits on the powers of different levels of
government, it should be ‘incompatible with autocracy or totalitarian rule’. But the
Rivers State Local Government Law which empowers the state government, in
Section 64 (2) and (3) to dissolve elected local government councils with ‘a
stroke of the pen’ violates the principles and institutions of democratic and
constitutional government which Wheare said is a ‘condition of federalism’.
The aforementioned section empowers the state government to ignore
jurisdictional status and go ahead to dissolve local government councils on the
116
basis of any local government engaging in ‘any activity that is detrimental to the
corporate existence of the state or local government’.
By this law, only the
Governor determines when the activities of a local government council are
‘detrimental to the corporate existence of the state or local government’. As a
matter of fact, a dissent of a local government chairman on any policy of the state
government can be interpreted as ‘detrimental to corporate existence’.
The
former leader of Ogu-Bolo Legislative council explained to us in an interview that
it was differences in political party affiliation between the Governor and the
chairman of Ogu-Bolo that led to the sacking of the Chairman by the Governor in
2001.
The Governor was of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) while the
Chairman was elected in 1999 under the platform of All Peoples Party (APP).
The local government was also considered then as the stronghold of the
opposition. This is why Gboyega (1991:53) thinks that it is preposterous for the
general supervisory powers of the state government to extend to dissolution of
local government councils on the nebulous political grounds, such as ‘a state
government judgment that their performance is not conducive to public welfare’
Gboyega further maintains that ‘the prerogative to dismiss a council rightly
belongs to voters, rather than a state government’.
Totalitarian tendencies of the Rivers State government towards local
government councils played out in full measure in June 2002 when the
government of Dr. Peter Odili applied the Local Government Law retroactively to
dissolve all elected local government councils. It was on the ground that the
Local Government Law assented to on 23rd of March 2000, after the councils
were inaugurated in May 1999, prescribed a three year term of office for the local
117
government councils. The local government chairmen and councillors had spent
only two years and six months before the dissolution by the state Governor. The
1999 Constitution is viewed by this study as an ‘accomplice’ in the dissolution of
democratic structures at the local government level.
This is because the
constitution was ‘silent’ on the term of office of executive and legislative councils
of local governments. The same constitution that prescribed term of office for all
political office holders at the first and second tier of government when it became
operational in May 1999 failed to do same for political office holders at the third
tier government.
This lacuna was probably exploited by the Rivers State
government to embark on what kingdom (1991:48) refers to as ‘the elimination of
local governments’. Kingdom regards ‘elimination of local government’ as ‘a
symptom of totalitarianism’.
In fact, he observed that local government in
Germany was one of the first casualties of Hitler’s rise to power. This was what
the Rivers State government displayed, on sustained basis, in its relations with
local government councils between 1999 and 2007.
A former chairman of a local government council in Rivers East Senatorial
District whom we interviewed affirmed that Section 64 (2) and (3) of the Local
Government Law served as ‘signpost and a constant reminder to chairmen of
local governments that the Governor is the sole determinant of the tenancy of
local government councils’.
According to the erstwhile chairman, ceding the
power to dissolve or sack local government chairmen and councillors to the
Governor is a ‘travesty of the principle of local government as a tier of
democratically elected government’.
His views support our findings that the
Rivers State Local Government Law and the 1999 Constitution engendered
118
totalitarianism in state-local government relations in Rivers State. In fact the
Local Government Law had immeasurable adverse effect on the status of local
governments as a tier of government if we consider the comments of Senator
Smart Adeyemi that Governors, due largely to their ‘culture of impunity and
absolutism’ are the ‘greatest traitors to the survival of the local government
system’ (Thisday October 16, 2006). Olaniyonu (2007:80) reinforces the position
of Senator Adeyemi when he observed that events have proved that the greatest
autocrats the Fourth Republic has produced are the Governors.
Olaniyonu
declares that:
Even the most vocal among them will not tolerate
any dissenting voice, just as they will not leave any
institution in their domain to operate independently.
The powers of the Governor of Rivers State over local government councils is
better imagined if we again consider what some of our respondents perceived as
the ‘lame-duck’ character of the Rivers State House of Assembly. A case in point
was when the Caretaker Chairman of Emohua Local Government Council was
sacked from office by the Governor for granting permit to an opposition party, All
Nigerians Peoples Party (ANPP), to hold a campaign rally in the Council
Headquarters in the run up to 2003 general elections exactly three days after the
ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) used the same venue for the same
purpose (Beacon Newspaper, February 17, 2003).
Whereas the constitution provides that the State Legislature shall make
laws for the ‘establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions’ of the
local governments, the Rivers State House of Assembly ‘interpreted’ this
provision to mean its direct involvement in the day-to-day administration of the
119
local government councils. A former chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government
council said in our interview with him that the House of Assembly do not give the
local government chairmen ‘the latitude to perform their statutory functions’. He
noted that the regular interference of the Rivers State House of Assembly in the
administration of local governments is predicated on Section 64 (1) of the Rivers
State Local Government Law that states:
The Rivers State House of Assembly may at anytime
inquire into the running of any local government
council and give such directives as it may deem
necessary.
The section empowers the House of Assembly to arbitrarily interfere with the
operations of local governments councils.
This is contrary to what obtains
between the First and Second tiers of government. As Ibeanu (2008:12) averred,
it is ‘an aberration for the National Assembly to unilaterally interfere in the affairs
of a state except where a state of emergency is invoked’. Our study therefore
reveals that Section 64 (1) violates and subverts the principle of non-interference
with the autonomy of local governments not only by its letters but also actions
purportedly taken by Rivers State governments pursuant to the provision of the
law.
Nwabueze (2008) in Sagay (2008:71) stated in very explicit terms that the
principle of non-interference;
Forbids one government, while keeping within the
limit of its jurisdiction under ultra vires doctrine, to
exercise its undoubted powers in a manner that, in
practical effects, impedes, frustrates, stultifies or
otherwise
unduly
interferes
with
another
government’s management of its affairs or its
continued meaning existence as a government.
120
Such areas of interference include but not limited to the management of finance,
the appointment and control of staff and the exercise of other essential
governmental functions.
Sagay concludes that any federal or state law
contravening these principles in a federal system is ‘unconstitutional, null and
void’.
From our findings, the Rivers State government is in total breach of the
principle of non-interference in its relations with local government councils. The
laws of the state governing the operations of local governments foster the idea
that local government is nothing more than a creation of the state government.
As Omorotionmwan (2005:12) observed, state governments easily claim that
section 7 (1) of the Constitution makes local governments ‘their baby to the total
exclusion’ of other tiers.
There is the notion of the state government as an
‘occupational force’ whose priority is to direct the local government councils to
serve the interest of the political class at the state level. Onah (2004:12) decries
this anomaly in intergovernmental relations when he said;
The current mentality of the state government which
sees itself as a boss and the local governments as
weak subordinates to whom it dictates, whose future
depends on its not only wrong but retrogressive.
This study also found that most provisions of the Rivers State Local
Government Law are ostensibly intended to structure state-local government
relations in ways that disempowered local governments and erode their status in
intergovernmental partnership. The implication is that local government status in
Rivers State is governed by the ‘Dillon rule’.
The rule declared complete
subordination of local governments to the state government.
Our study also
shows that the effect of constitutional ambiguity with specific reference to section
121
7 (1) has been compounded by the behaviour of key political actors of the state
level. We made this finding from the comments of a Lawyer and former member
of the Rivers State House of Assembly in the course of our interview. The former
Legislator submits that;
There has been demonstrable reluctance on the part
of state government officials to accept local
governments as a separate tier of government. This
behaviour has heightened the preference by these
officials to violate rather than preserve or protect the
institution of local government. In reality, the local
governments have become a dinning table for
economic buccaneers at the state level.
The submissions give credence to our findings that state-local government
relations in Rivers State was marked by unbridled interference of the state
government in the operations of local government councils. Between 1999 and
2007, no fewer than four chairmen of the local government councils and one vice
chairman were removed from office by the Rivers State House of Assembly
(Egobueze 2008). These removals, especially those of Ogu-Bolo chairman in
2001, Akuku-Toru Chairman in 2002 and Opobo / Nkoro chairman in 2006 by the
House of Assembly follows a sequence that one of our respondents, the Bills
officer of Rivers State House of Assembly, sums up as ‘gross abuse of power,
violation, derogation, subversion, contravention and contradiction of the spirit,
letters, purport and import of the Rivers State Local Government Law’.
In
essence, local governments were treated in the phrase of Ejims (2008) as ‘mere
prefectures of the state government’.
Section 7(1) of the Constitution guaranteed the existence of local
government system with a democratic status. The opening sentence of the
section reads thus;
122
The system of local government by democratically
elected local government councils is under this
constitution guaranteed.
The letters of the section divest from state governments the powers to operate a
local government system not composed of democratically elected local
government councils. The thrust of Section 7 (1), according to Ozor (2003) is ‘the
strengthening and democratization of the local government system’. This is in
consonance with, and confirmation of the letters and spirit of the Constitution to
make the institution of local government a third tier system of governmental
organization.
In other words, the constitution does not contemplate the
tampering with organizational set-up of democratically elected local government
councils by the States. In fact, by the pronouncements of Justice M.A. Edet,
State Governors have ‘no powers to dissolve any democratically elected local
government council’ (Ior 2006:17).
From the findings we made, the expression of the constitution to
democratize the local government councils was fragrantly violated and
undermined by a democratic government in Rivers State.
Section 4 (11) of
Rivers State Local Government (Amendment) Law, No.3 of 2002 provides for the
appointment of Caretaker Committee by the Governor to ‘oversee the affairs of
the local government councils’ The chairman and members of the Caretaker
Committee are subject to screening and confirmation by the House of Assembly.
So, in contravention of the provisions of Section 7 (1) of the Constitution, but in
compliance to the Rivers State Local Government Law, the Rivers State
government relapsed into the use of non-democratically elected Caretaker
Committees to run the affairs of the local government councils between July 2002
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and April 2004 in three batches. The resort to the use of caretaker committee on
the basis of section 4 (11) of the Local Government Law was not only an affront
to the institution of local government but also a violation of Section 1 (3) of the
constitution that reads thus;
If any other law is inconsistent with the provisions of
this Constitution, this Constitution shall prevail, and
that other law shall to the extent of the inconsistency
be void.
Despite this constitutional prescription, the Rivers State government used an
illegal contraption called Caretaker Committee to run local government councils
for two years. It amount to what Egobueze (2008:37) refer to as ‘a democratic
coup by the state government’.
The Caretaker Committee System provided an avenue for compensating
and empowering politicians deemed to be loyal members of both the PDP and
the Governor’s political organization: The Restoration Team. This researcher
was part of the administrative staff of Rivers State House of Assembly in 2002
that collated the nominees of the Honourable Members into the Caretaker
Committee of the various Local government councils.
As a matter of fact,
Principal Officers of the Assembly nominated the Caretaker Committee Chairmen
of their Local Government Areas. By our calculation, the Caretaker Committees
of the twenty-three (23) local government councils, constituted in three batches,
provided political appointment for over one thousand cronies and loyalists of
prominent political office holders in the state. By this arrangement, the state
government only appear to see local government as what one of our respondents
from the Rivers State House of Assembly refers to as an ‘institution for political
charity’.
From our findings, it is indeed this arrangement that made local
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government councils in Rivers State degenerate to what Bello-Imam & Edu
(2004:467) painted as ‘mere structural decorations at the periphery and not a real
tier of government’.
It is interesting to note that the only amendment made to the Rivers State
Local Government Law in 2003 was to substitute ‘five members’ of Caretaker
Committee with ‘seven members’ in Section 2.
We found that all the five
Amendments to the Principal Law had to do with only amending tenure of office
of elected council officials and appointment of Caretaker Committee. This
amounted to a waste of public funds considering the resources expended on
sitting allowances, public hearing and other legislative processes. According to a
former member of the Rivers House of Assembly, who served between 2003 and
2007, the amendments were to accommodate many supporters and cronies of
the Governor, Deputy-Governor, Commissioners, State party leaders and
members of the State House of Assembly.
He actually admitted that these
legislations were usually enacted on ‘politically partisan considerations’.
Egobueze (2008:19) puts it pointedly that ‘these amendments were geared
towards making the state government have a firm control in the administration of
local government councils’. Thus, the amendments affirm the legal dictum that
‘the reason and spirit of a law are to be understood only by an inquiry into the
circumstances of its enactment’.
The inauguration of Caretaker Committee in local government councils in
Rivers State was challenged in court by some opposition parties and prodemocracy groups in 2002 and has remained a subject of litigation till the time of
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this study. But the pronouncement of Justice M.A. Edet (FHC/MKD/CS/20/2002)
while delivering Judgment in a similar matter in Benue State declared that:
The state government has no power to make a law
creating an arbitrary body called Transition
Committee for the purpose of unlawfully taking
governance from democratically elected local
government councils.
Justice Edet further averred that the appointment of Caretaker Committee ‘clearly
amounts to a defacement of the structure of a democratically elected local
government council’ and ‘is also a breach of Section 7 (1) of the 1999
Constitution of Nigeria’ (Ior 2006:17). The case of Benue State and the judicial
pronouncement by Justice M.A. Edet is considered by this study as a locus
classicus on the legality or illegality of Caretaker Committees that superintended
the affairs of local government councils in Rivers State between July 2002 and
April 2004.
The discussion of the provisions relating to the removal of a chairman or
vice chairman of local government council in Rivers State shall be done through
a comparative analysis of Rivers State Local Government Law and Akwa Ibom
State Local Government Law as enacted by the Rivers State House of Assembly
and Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly respectively.
The essence is to
discover the difference between the two Laws with a view to understanding how
the legal instrument affect and shape some aspects of state-local government
relations in Rivers and Akwa Ibom States. Except for a few changes in text and
sections, the Local Government Administration Law of Akwa Ibom is similar to
that of Cross Rivers State. The highlights and implications of the provisions
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relating to the removal of Chairman or Vice chairman of local government council
in Akwa Ibom and Rivers States reveal the following:
(i)
The resolution by the Legislative Council in Akwa Ibom to investigate
allegations of gross misconduct against a Chairman or vice chairman is
forwarded to the Chief Judge to empanel a team of inquiry while in Rivers
State, the resolution is presented to the House of Assembly who in turn refer
the matter to the Chief Judge.
(ii) The panel of seven persons appointed by the Chief Judge of Akwa Ibom
State is not in any way employees of the state government as the members
must not be members of legislative houses, political parties or be in public
service. On the contrary, members of the panel appointed by the Chief
Judge of Rivers State are Judges of the State judiciary, and therefore are
employees of the Rivers State Government. The operating environment of
the two panels is quite different as that of Rivers State may succumb to the
ageless dictum of ‘who pays the piper dictates the tune’.
(iii) In Akwa Ibom state, the panel reports its findings to the Legislative Council
who then consider the report. In Rivers State, the panel reports its findings
directly to the House of Assembly, who according to Section 13 (19) of the
Rivers State Local Government Law are at liberty to accept or reject the
findings of the panel. In Akwa Ibom Local Government Law, where the
panel reports to the legislative council that the allegation has not been
proved, no further proceeding is taken in respect of the matter. But in Rivers
State Local Government Law, no further proceeding is taken only when the
House of Assembly accepts the report. It therefore means that in Rivers
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State, accepting or rejecting the report of the panel appointed by the Chief
Judge is at the discretion of the House of Assembly, such that the report of
the panel, no mater how objective, could just be overruled by the House of
Assembly. The law arrogates to the House of Assembly absolute power and
decision in aggregating and determining what constitute a ‘gross
misconduct’ on the part of a local government chairman or his vice. In other
words, it is only the Rivers State House of Assembly that can interpret the
actions or inactions of local government chairmen that constitute
administrative, ethical, financial or constitutional infractions.
(iv) Where the report of the panel proves allegations of gross misconduct
against a chairman or vice chairman in Akwa Ibom State, it is the Legislative
Council that removes the office holder through a resolution adopting the
report.
In Rivers State, it is an institution of another tier of government
(House of Assembly) that adopts the report of the panel and removes
elected chairman of a local government council. The implication of a legal
framework that places the removal of the Chief Executive of a tier of
government on another tier, as is the case in Rivers State, is very obvious.
(v) The Akwa Ibom State Local Government Law empowers the Legislative
Council to suspend the Chairman or Vice Chairman pending the outcome of
the investigation. The Local Government Law in Rivers State not only vests
the power of suspending the chairman or vice chairman being investigated
on the State House of Assembly, it goes further to empower the State
Legislature to freeze the accounts of the affected local government council
‘until the matter is finally determined’.
Thus, payment of staff salaries,
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development projects and other obligations of the Local Government
Councils are, in the process stalled.
The foregoing comparative expositions of some provisions of Local
Government Law in Akwa Ibom and Rivers State clearly explain the nature,
character, mode and forms of intergovernmental relations in the two states. The
Rivers State model, which is the focus of our study, depicts a stranglehold of the
local government councils by the state government. A former leader in one of the
legislative councils we interviewed admitted that with the way the Local
Government Law is enacted, all that a Chairman of Local Government Council
requires to ensure that his term of office runs unhindered is to channel at least
20% of local government funds to bribing Principal officers and members of the
Rivers State House of Assembly, even if no development project is carried out.
As he stated;
It is not payment of staff salaries or performance of
other statutory functions of local government councils
that determines security of office of a chairman, it is
obviously his willingness to dispense monetary
patronage to the House of Assembly. After all, the
prerogative to remove a chairman or even dissolve
the executive and legislative councils of a local
government belongs to the State Legislature.
Chairmen of councils who pay salaries to local
government staff and embark on development
projects are just too magnanimous and are not willing
to take advantage of the Local Government Law to
hold on to power, irrespective of monumental
financial corruption and administrative malfeasance
they may perpetrate.
The Former leader averred that the opinions he expressed would be his
‘operational code’ if he became a chairman of local government council.
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We found that the events of July-September 2001 between the Rivers
State House of Assembly and Chairmen of local government councils must have
given fillip to this kind of ‘operational code’ contemplated by the former Leader.
During the said period, it was reported in the media that most chairmen of local
government councils were administering council funds without any appropriation
bill considered, approved or passed by their legislative councils. It was the
legislative councils of the various local governments who felt their powers of
debating, amending and approving Local Government Annual Estimates were
usurped by the Chairmen that raised petitions to the House of Assembly.
Following public outrage and condemnation of this practice of running the
councils as personal estates, the House of Assembly summoned the 23 local
government chairmen to appear in plenary session to answer questions
bordering on these allegations. The allegations were confirmed when the House
of Assembly established that only two of the twenty three chairmen had Annual
Estimates duly approved by their legislative councils as at the third quarter of that
year.
With this magnitude of financial and administrative infraction, it was
expected that the defaulting chairmen would be sanctioned. The only ‘sanction’ I
observed then as a Legislative Aide in the House of Assembly was verbal
reprimands of the defaulting chairmen by the leadership of the House of
Assembly after the matter was said to have been settled as a ‘PDP Family affair’.
It was credibly speculated that the members of the Rivers House of Assembly
received huge monetary bribes from the chairmen of local government councils.
The question that gives credence to this ‘bribery theory’ is that, if no monies were
offered and received between the chairmen and House of Assembly members,
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why were the chairmen not sanctioned in line with provisions of the Rivers State
Local Government Law?
This shows that what the Rivers State House of
Assembly performs over local government councils, in line with Section 7 (1) of
the 1999 Constitution and Rivers State Local Government Law is not legislative
oversight but what Otive Igbuzor of Action Aid International refers to as
‘legislative extortion’.
The foregoing findings show that both the 1999 Constitution and the Rivers
State Local Government Law preserve the status of a tier of government for the
state government. On the other hand, the legal documents preclude the status of
a tier of government for local government councils.
The findings, therefore,
validate our First Hypothesis that; ‘The provisions of the 1999 Constitution and
the Rivers State Local Government Law erodes the status of local government
councils as a tier of government and enhances that of the state government’.
5.2
The Control and Manipulation of the Administrative Structure of Local
Government Councils by the State Government
Our discussion here is focused on how the institutions of the State such as
Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission, Local Government Service
Commission and Ministry of Local Government are explored by the state
government to ensure the control and manipulation of key functionaries of local
government councils. While the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission
(RSIEC) organizes and supervises election of local government chairmen and
councillors, the Local Government Service Commission is responsible for
personnel management of senior career civil servants in local government
councils.
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Our findings show that there is a remarkably clear trend towards what Toyo
(2003) refers to as ‘corruptible role’ of political office holders at the state level,
who interfere with the electoral process and deny the local people the opportunity
to elect chairmen and councillors of their choice.
This was what played out
extensively in the March 2004 local government election in Rivers State. State
government officials such as commissioners, legislators and Special Advisers to
the Governor usurped and weakened the role of RSIEC, and rendered elections
to the local government councils ‘a mere selection process’ (Ogundu 2004).
What this produced in virtually all local government councils were chairmen and
councillors who did not go through a democratic process, thereby lacking
legitimacy. The legitimacy crisis, created by key state actors in collaboration with
RSIEC, produced a distortionary effect at local governments. From the postelection reports of Campaign for Electoral Freedom in Nigeria (CAEN), the
deployment of state resources by officials of Rivers State government for the
prosecution of the local government election was evident. The report further
stated that ‘RSIEC only provided a legal platform for the Rivers State
Government to superintend the affairs of all local government councils’. The
October 15, 2004, Annual Report of Campaign for Electoral Freedom in Nigeria
(CAEN) concludes that;
RSIEC midwifed a process that produced
government officials that could only trace
mandate to high ranking officials of Rivers
government rather than the electorates in
government areas.
local
their
State
local
The outcome of the election simply placed operators of local government
councils within the control of agents and political officials of the state government.
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In reality, the local government elections of 2004 can be said to have undermined
participatory democracy at the grassroots, which for a long time, has remained a
justification for establishment of local governments. The implication is that the
critical connection between the local people and the leadership of the various
local government councils was severely ruptured.
The foregoing, from our findings, engendered the politics of transaction in
state-local government relations. It is a perspective on governance that compels
protégés to divide the ‘spoils of office’ with their sponsors. Toyo (2003:50) aptly
captures it as ‘elevation of godfatherism’ where ‘overbearing network of
patronage undermine every effort to put accountable systems in place’. Most of
our respondents admitted that chairmen of local government councils were
coerced to make financial returns to their sponsors at the expense of
development projects in local government areas. They said any chairman who
refused to acquiesce to the demand was threatened with removal from office. A
clear example, as some respondents recalled, was played out in Degema Local
Government when the chairman, Mr. Tony Philemon, addressed the Press in
2006 and admitted the reason he could not embark on projects for
commissioning during the Governor’s tour of Local Government Areas was
because he dedicates about 30 percent of the Local government’s federal
allocation to servicing the family, cronies and political structure of the Deputy
Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Mr. Tony Harry, whom the
chairman claimed sponsored him to office. Most respondents also confirmed that
the Degema episode occurred, in different dimensions, between local
government chairmen and state government officials in most parts of Rivers
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State.
These revelations underscored the predatory disposition of state
government officials.
Our findings further show that the network of relationship that was created
between officials of the state government and local government chairmen was
mostly defined by what Olaniyonu (2004:64) described as ‘school principal-class
captain mentality’. This was due, largely to the warped political system where
chairmen of local government councils are more interested in playing ‘politics of
survival’ than defending the institution of local government. This was in a bid to
safeguard their career in a political atmosphere where the inadequacies of the
constitution made the state government ‘an all powerful emperor’ in its
relationship with local government councils.
All through the period our study
covered, the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON), Rivers State
chapter, failed to be an influential interventionist body capable of defending the
institution and status of local government as a tier of government. Most times, it
publicly defended the state government when the latter arbitrarily diverted federal
allocations to local governments and failed to remit 10% of state internally
generated revenue to local government councils as we shall see in our
discussion of findings related to Hypothesis 3.
The public show of solidarity and image laundering for Rivers State
Governor by local government chairmen and councillors when state governments
in Nigeria were accused by the Senate in August 2004 of diverting federal
allocations to local government councils is a clear example of insidious
manipulations of key political functionaries of local government councils by the
state government. The chairman of Association of Local Government of Nigeria
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(ALGON), Rivers State chapter, and Mayor of Port Harcourt, Azubuike
Nmerukini, in company of the 23 chairmen of local government councils
addressed a World Press Conference in Port Harcourt and absolved the state
Governor and the state governments of the allegations made by the Senate. As
the Editorial of Beacon Newspaper of August 27, 2004 observed, the chairmen of
local government councils in the ‘show of shame’ tendered or presented ‘no
verifiable documents to controvert the allegations of the Senate’.
A former local government chairman from Rivers East Senatorial District
we interviewed offered two reasons why ALGON resorted to sophistry in the face
of state government’s diversion of federal allocations to local government
councils. The first is on ‘moral’ basis.
He said since all the chairmen and
councillors accessed office to local government councils through the will, support
and benevolence of the Governor and his key aides, it would be ‘morally
reprehensible’ not to defend the Governor in the manner they did. The second,
he said, is political expediency.
The interviewee observed that any action
contrary to public show of solidarity with the Governor and the state government
will amount to ‘political tsunami or hara-kiri’ for chairmen of local government
councils. He asked, ‘How can we differ with a government that the law
empowered to sack us at their discretion?’ The former chairman concludes thus;
Local government chairmen are neither human rights
activists nor social crusaders; they are politicians
with Nigerian content. Of course, there is no reason
to suppose that local government chairmen will try to
defend the institution of local government if to do so
is likely to threaten their political interest and
relevance. So, the local government operators lack
both the moral and political capital to stand up to the
state government.
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We also found that even the constitutional infraction of dissolving elected local
government councils in 2002 before the expiration of their term of office was not
challenged in any court of law by local government chairmen and councillors.
Local government councils literally ignored their legal status to compel action or
receive redress for arbitrary, incompetent or non-existent actions by the state
government. The former chairman admitted to us that local government councils
were ‘reduced to working through administrative channels and begging for what
by law should be theirs’.
The actions and postures of chairmen of local
government councils depict them as administrators that are accountable and
answerable to the state government rather than ‘the people of a locality’.
On the part of Local Government Service Commission, we found out that
the influence of politics over its operation is so pervasive that routine decisions
such as staff appointment, posting and promotion, became a source of
dispensing patronage to party loyalists. Very often, as confirmed to us by a
former member of the Commission, such exercises are guided by the directives
of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), through its members that serve in the
Commission.
In the process, most actions and operational guidelines of the
Commission become mere perfunctory exercise of giving effect to party
directives.
Our respondent who served as a member of the Commission
between 2000 and 2003 admitted that ‘the Commission is subjected to
overwhelming political influence in appointing, confirming, posting and exercising
disciplinary control over local government staff’. The erstwhile member of the
Commission further revealed that the bureaucratic interference of the state
government was such that, in most cases, appointment of Heads of Local
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Government Administration, Heads of personnel management, Works, Education
and Council Treasurers was done on the basis of recommendation by members
of State Executive Council and leadership of the PDP at the state level. As a
matter of fact, there are seven functional Departments in all local government
councils. They are; Education, Finance, Works, Health, Personnel, Procurement,
Agriculture and Head of Local Government Administration.
The professional
Heads of these Departments are appointed by the Local Government Service
Commission and are all members of Finance and General Purpose Committee
(F&GPC).
The Committee is the highest decision making body in the local
government: it approves financial expenditure and directs general policy issues.
According to Eminue (2000), the professional Heads of Departments are
considered more knowledgeable about the workings of the local government
system than the political office holders.
A Chief Administrative Officer in one of the local government councils in
Rivers West Senatorial District corroborates the revelations of the former
member of the Commission. According to the Chief Administrative Officer, merit
and due process are, most times, not adhered to by the Local Government
Service Commission in making these appointments. The basic consideration by
the Commission is the political affiliation and social network of the appointed
officers. He cited several cases where level 10 officers are appointed Treasurers
ahead of level 13 and 14 officers. There were also instances where level 13
officers are appointed Heads of personnel management ahead of level 14 and 15
officers in clear breach of civil service rule.
The Chief Administrative officer
narrated a case of chairmanship aspirant under platform of the PDP who was
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compensated with the position of Head of personnel management despite the
fact that he had not been in the service for more than two years. The concluding
remark of the interviewee was very instructive;
What goes on in local government service commission
is the reign and height of ‘cabalism’. The politics of the
commission is far more than what transpires in the
Wadata Headquarters of the PDP. Those appointed
Heads of personnel management; Heads of Local
Government Administration and Treasurers make
regular financial returns to the commission as a
measure of gratitude and as means of preserving their
enviable positions.
These remarks show that the Local Government Service Commission is
immersed in excessive politicking.
From our findings, the category of state government officials that we may
refer to as ‘professional politicians’ use most aspects of personnel administration
conducted by Local Government Service Commission to maintain political control
over local government councils.
They simply explore party mercenary to
influence members of the Commission to get their supporters, friends and
relations appointed key officers and deployed to local government councils with
strong revenue base.
The appointed officers, such as Heads of personnel
management, Heads of Local Government Administration and Treasurers, in
return deploy the resources of the local government councils to sustaining
structures of the party at the local level.
In fact, the former Member of the
Commission we interviewed revealed that even the Chairman and Members of
the Commission take advantage of recruitment exercises to ‘build and maintain
political structures in their various Local Government Areas of origin’.
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The foregoing explains why contrary to the intention of unified system of
managing local government personnels, Local Government Service Commission
has not been able to remove local government personnel management from
political party influence. It has been difficult for the commission to operate as a
structure independent of the state government. The Director of Planning and
Research in the Local Government Service Commission attested to this when he
told us in an interview that;
The state government appoints the chairman and
members of the Commission. The same government
provides and maintains the Secretariat of the
Commission, staffs the Commission, provides and
controls its funds. How then should anyone expect
the Commission to be a structure independent of the
state government’s control and influence?
It is evident, from the above submissions, that Local Government Service
Commission tends to serve political interest of those who weld power at the state
level. It therefore follows that the Commission is only, as Onah (1995:48) puts it,
‘the controlling outfit put in place by state governments for the local
governments’. A Head of Department in Obio/Akpor local Government Council
admitted to us that the policies of Local Government Service Commission seldom
derive from concern for the effectiveness of local governments.
Our findings show that high ranking career civil servants in the local
government councils operate under a political environment that compels them to
regard any directives or guidelines from Local Government Service Commission
and the State Executive Council as de facto law. So a typical local government
employee sees his or her job as one of those posting within the civil service. In
the words of a Head of personnel management who served in Omuma,
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Opobo/Nkoro and Emohua Local Government Councils, ‘we regard ourselves
first and foremost as appointees of the state government and as such regard
state’s directives to local governments as fait accompli’. According to him, this
makes it quite easy for the state government to directly control the administration
of local government councils, whether it is in the area of personnel administration
or financial administration.
The Head of Personnel Management actually
admitted that parts of the financial benefits of their offices are ‘channelled to
reaffirm our loyalty to members of the Local Government Service Commission
and top officials of the Ministry of Local Government in order to keep our
positions’.
What the expressions of the above respondent further exposes is the overdependence of senior career civil servants of local government councils on the
institutions of the state government for growth while in service.
Our study,
therefore, reveals that the Local Government Service Commission reduced
career civil servants in local governments to what Bello-Imam & Edu (2004:459)
described as ‘peripheral agents’ of the state government. This is probably why
Hakeem (2003:39) is of the view that local governments functioning with
personnel managed by Local Government Service Commission ‘cannot count on
the loyalty of such staff for the execution of its programmes’. The operations of
state institutions such as Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission and
Local Government Service Commission validate our Second Hypothesis that;
‘The Administrative structure of Local Government Councils is subject to the
control and manipulations of the State Government.’
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5.3
Implications of State Joint Local Government Account on the
Financial Autonomy of Local Government Councils
Based on the submissions of Okoli & Onah (2002) that intergovernmental
relation is a negotiation, it is evident that ‘the element of money’ between the
state and local governments is negotiated in ‘the bargaining table’ of State Joint
Local Government Account. From the data presented and analyzed in Chapter
Four, it is clear that the Joint Account is exploited by the Rivers State government
to attain what Okoli and Onah (2002:256) refer to as ‘advantageous positions for
power and money’ over local government councils. Our findings show that the
constitutional provision for State Joint Local Government Account actually
engenders a prevalence of what Omole (1999:79) sees as ‘fiscal unitarism’
enjoyed by the state government to the disadvantage of local government
councils.
It is imperative to state that the result of our analyses on the remittance of
I0 percent of the State Internally Generated Revenue to local government
councils portray not only the fiscal dominance of the state government, but also
the ‘pauperization’ of the institution of local government. As our analysis show,
10 percent of State Internally Generated Revenue, which is statutory, only
trickles down on infinitesimal percentage from the State Joint Local Government
Account to local government councils. Only 17,900,000.00 million naira out of
6,799,146,697.00 billion naira was remitted to the local government councils in
six years. The balance of 6,781,246,697.00 billion naira was appropriated by the
state government. Ibim (2009) adduced three reasons why 10 percent of state
internally generated revenue is not remitted to local government councils. The
first is that local government councils are not represented in the Board of Internal
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Revenue. The Second is that internally generated revenue is a major source of
fund that is largely diverted for private use by officials of the state government.
The third is the penchant for breaching constitutional provisions by officials of the
state government, especially on matters of state-local government relations.
From our findings, these are some of the issues that lead to fiscal dominance of
the state government in the allocation of internally generated revenue.
In the same vein, the analysis of Table 4.2 reveals that the administration
of ‘State Joint Local Government Account’ creates and sustains fiscal relations
between the state and local government councils that are structured around the
former’s dominance. The ‘Joint Account’ is used by the state government to
‘encroach’ into statutory allocations of the councils. Our findings reveal that the
state government diverted 7.4%, 15%, 13%, 29% and 17% of Federal allocations
to local government councils in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 respectively.
Between 2002 and 2004 when the incidence of diversion of allocations from
Federation Account to local government councils was high, the councils were
administered by Caretaker Committees. This dominant feature between 2002
and 2004 means that the dismantling of democratic structures at the local
government level was also accompanied by arbitrary diversion of local
government allocations from Federation Account by the state government.
The above unwholesome practice in several states of the Federation
prompted the National Assembly to enact the ‘Monitoring of Revenue to Local
Governments Act of 2005’. The Act criminalized the wanton diversion of federal
allocations to local government councils by the State governments.
The Act
provides, inter-alia;
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(i)
that a Commissioner from Revenue Mobilisation Commission shall
participate in State Joint Local Government Account Allocation Committee.
(ii) punishment of five years imprisonment for Governors or other officials of
state government who divert or misappropriate local government allocation
from Federation Account.
(iii) a fine twice the amount diverted or misappropriated by a state government
official when found guilty.
(iv) In the event of any state government tampering with funds of its local
government councils, the Accountant General of the Federation shall cause
the allocation to such a state to be debited in favour of the affected councils
as a first line charge.
This laudable Act was seen by officials of Rivers State government as
federal usurpation of state government’s power. The then speaker of Rivers State
House of Assembly, Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and the Governor, Dr. Peter
Odili led other states to challenge the Act at the Supreme Court (ThisDay, June
30, 2005, p.15).
The states, relying on section 162 (6), argued that the
intervention of federal government officials, agencies and institutions in the
administration of State Joint Local Government Account is a misnomer and a
contravention of the constitution. The supreme court, in a Majority judgment
delivered by Justice Niki Tobi, declared the Act null and void on the ground that
‘the National Assembly has not the legislative competence to legislate on the
nicety or nitty-gritty of the Joint Account’. This study agrees with the Minority
judgment of Justice Idris Kutigi as well as the submissions of Omorohonmwan
(2005) that there is nothing in the act of the National Assembly that suggest an
143
ouster of the oversight responsibility of the local government councils from the
state governments.
In other words, the Act does not in any way vitiate the
requirement of ‘State Joint Local Government Account’ as enunciated in Section
162 (6) of the Constitution. In fact, we believe that the Act attempted to give
force and meaning to the provision requiring each state to set up the Joint
Account Allocation Committee. Thus, accountability and transparency in the
administration of the Joint Account is all that the Act is intended to achieve.
Therefore, that the Rivers State government led the opposition and litigation
against the ‘Monitoring of Revenue to Local Government Act’, which was actually
intended to restore the financial autonomy and functionality of local government
administration, suggest that it was deeply involved in the abuses the Act intended
to check. As a mater of fact, the findings arising from the analysis of Table 4.2
confirms this position.
As analysis of Table 4.3 revealed, implementation of budgetary provisions
of local government councils is limited by the operation of State Joint Local
Government Account. This is because parts of statutory funds required to finance
Approved Estimates (budgets) of local government councils are diverted or not
released by the state government. This was clearly the case in 2004 where we
established that the state government diverted 17% of statutory federal
allocations to local government councils. Budget deficits experienced by local
government councils over the years can also be explained or attributed to the
non-remittance of 10% of state internally generated revenue to local
governments by the state government. There is need to point out here that both
144
federal allocations and 10% state internally generated revenue to local
government councils are administered through the ‘Joint Account’.
Our findings further revealed that the ‘power of the purse’ is exclusively
enjoyed by the state government. This explains why it exercises power over
local government councils in a manner that is obviously more than provided by
the letters of the constitution. As Onah (2007:115) observed, the amount of
financial resources available to a level of government in a federation determines
the degree of power it welds in its relationship with other tier(s). State Joint Local
Government Account, therefore, provides the framework where local government
funds are channeled to the coffers of Rivers State Government. This is in line
with the submission of Okpata (2005:270) that the ‘Joint Account’ gives the state
government ‘the leeway for financial manipulations of the local governments’. It
should be noted that the failure of the constitution to prescribe elaborate, explicit
and standard procedure for administration of State Joint Local Government
Account was exploited by the state government to manipulate the Joint Account
in a manner that impeded the financial autonomy of local government Councils.
The Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) Accountant in the Office of
Accountant-General of the State informed us in an interview that JAAC office was
not set up until July 2002.
This means that there was no formal structure
responsible for the administration of the Joint Account between May 1999 and
July 2002. This was corroborated by two former chairmen of local government
councils who admitted that both the technical and plenary sessions of JAAC had
neither an operational guideline nor ‘standing rules’.
According to them, the
practice was just to go and collect local government cheque from the office of the
145
Commissioner for Finance, who is also the chairman of JAAC, whenever it is
prepared.
We also found that the State Joint Local Government Account was grossly
manipulated by Rivers State government due largely to the absence of a legal
framework for monitoring the administration of the Joint Account. This was
worsened by the failure of both the National Assembly and the Rivers State
House of Assembly to ensure compliance with Section 9 (2) of the ‘Allocation to
Revenue Act’. This section requires the Accountant General of each state to
report to the State House of Assembly and the National Assembly, at the end of
the each financial year, whether or not payments made to local government
councils ‘were correctly made under this Act and under the relevant law of the
state governing such payments’. We could not trace any report of the Accountant
General of the State in the State House of Assembly that is in compliance with
this provision. The Bills officer of the Rivers State House of Assembly actually
confirmed to us that no such report has ever been sent to the House of Assembly
since 1999. Although we could not confirm from the National Assembly, but it is
most unlikely that such reports exist.
In concluding our discussion of findings, we need to restate that the results
of the analyses of Tables 4.1 and 4.2, and findings made thereof corroborates
the views of Onah (2004:197) that;
State governments have not only failed in their
constitutional financial responsibilities to local
governments but have also constituted obstacles to
the latter’s access to finances from other statutory
sources.
146
From every indication, the pendulum of fiscal power that is clearly in the control
of the state government is engendered by the maintenance of State Joint Local
Government Account. This proves our Third Hypothesis that ‘The administration
of State Joint Local Government Account enhances the finances of the state
government and impedes financial autonomy of local government councils’.
147
CHAPTER SIX
SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
6.1
Summary
This study examined the legal, political, administrative and fiscal
relationship between Rivers State Government and the local government
councils in a democratic regime.
We tried to establish whether or not the
structure and process of transaction and interaction between the two levels of
government is guided by co-operative federalism. In the Background to the
Study, we noted that intergovernmental relations in Nigeria are defined, to a large
extent, in the 1999 Constitution. The Constitution prescribes and recognizes
three levels of government: a federal, states and local governments. Each of
these levels has its sphere of influence and functional competence. Research
questions intended at focusing the problem clearly were formulated, and the
objectives of the study outlined.
Sequel to the above, we embarked on a review of existing literature
relevant to our study in an attempt to locate our study within the mainstream of
previous studies. The exercise involved the exposition and critique of existing
ideas on federalism, intergovernmental relations, constitutional framework and
Rivers State Local Government Law. The review not only formed the basis but
also provided justification for the study. To guide our study, we formulated three
hypotheses linked in consistent manner to the research questions and objectives
of the study.
The study, which was empirical, was conducted through interviews with
over 30 respondents using purposive sampling technique.
Secondary data
148
obtained from books, journals, newspapers, government publications and on-line
materials were ‘content analyzed’. We adopted Structural-Functional Approach
and Theory of Federalism as our theoretical framework for analysis. Our interest
in the application of the theories is driven by their concern with interrelationship in
a political system and the effects of structures and institutions on the two level of
government. These theories offered a reliable framework, in which the subjectmatter was carefully examined.
Based on the data collected and analyzed, the study revealed that; the
provisions of the 1999 Constitution and the Rivers State Local Government Law
preserves and protects the status of the state as a tier of government while the
local government councils are divested of the fundamental features associated
with a tier of government; state government institutions and agencies such as
Local Government Service Commission, Rivers State Independent Electoral
Commission and Ministry of Local Government are explored to exercise and
deepen political and bureaucratic control of local government councils by the
State government; the administration of ‘State Joint Local Government Account’
creates and sustains fiscal relations between the State and Local Government
Councils in a manner that impedes financial autonomy of local governments.
The findings made validated the three hypotheses formulated.
149
6.2
Recommendations
Based on our findings, we recommend that;
(a) Some sections of the 1999 Constitution relating to State-local government
relations should be amended.
Such Sections include 7 (1) which has
completely subjugated local government councils to states. The power to
make law ‘which provides for the establishment, structure, composition,
finance and functions’ of local government councils should be removed from
the State government.
These elements should be enshrined in the
constitution in order to adequately recognise local government councils as
the third tier of administration.
This is because the inclusion of Local
Government as a residual matter in the 1999 constitution challenges the
third tier status of local government. To reinvent the third tier status of local
governments, Part III should be created and added to Chapters V and VI of
the Constitution. Chapter V, Part III should provide for Legislative Council of
a Local Government while chapter VI, Part III provide for the Executive
Council of the Local Government. These are similar to the provisions made
for the Federal and the State governments in Parts I and II respectively. The
term of office of both the Executive and Legislative arms of local government
councils should also be stipulated by the Constitution in line with those of the
First and Second tiers of governments.
The laws made by the State
Government for Local Government Councils should be restricted to electoral
law for the conduct of elections into local government councils, traditional
institutions, property rates and rating, security and inter-local government
150
Boundary. With this arrangement, the true sense of devolution of powers
between the States and Local Governments will be defined.
(b) The Rivers State Local Government Law should be repealed and a new law
enacted. Most provisions of the extant law have ‘vitiated’ the institution of
local government, created a ‘master-servant relations’ between the state and
local government councils and led to unbridled interference of the state in
local government administration.
Sections of the existing law that are
obnoxious to the existence, independence and survival of local government
councils should not be contemplated by the new legislation. Some of the
sections include;
i) Section 4(II) which provides for the appointment of Caretaker Committee
for local government councils.
ii) Section 13 (5) and 9 (b) that grants excessive powers to the State House
of Assembly in the removal of Chairmen or Vice Chairmen of councils.
iii) Section 10 that empowers the House of Assembly to suspend a chairman
who is under investigation and freeze accounts of local government
councils.
iv) Section 64 (1) (2) and (3) which empowers the state government to
control, dismiss, dissolve local government councils and institute inquiry
into the general administration of local government councils.
(c)
The provision for each local government council to establish a Local
Government Service Commission for staffing and personnel administration
should be made. The commission, which is to be independently set up by
each local government council will replace and take over the functions of
151
Local Government Service Commission established by the state
government.
This will reduce the overbearing influence and excessive
control the state government exerts on local government administration
through the existing Local Government Service Commission. In practice,
the Commission established by the state government has become mere
extension of the state’s apparatus of governance in the local government
councils. There should, however, be institutional mechanism for the Local
Government Service Commissions to be established by the local
governments to regularly interface with State Civil Service Commission in
the areas of manpower training, capacity building, research and
development, organizational management and service delivery. We believe
that development efforts in any functional federal system require
decentralized structures and institutional collaboration between levels of
governments.
(d)
The State Independent Electoral Commission should be constituted from
representatives of accredited Village and Community Associations. The
representatives must not be members of the political parties or actively
involved in partisan politics. This will replace the present structure made
up of known political actors that have strong political affinity to political
office holders at the state level. To avoid undue interference by the state
government, the funding of such locally established electoral body should
be through one percent deductions made from statutory allocations to local
government councils. It will create an atmosphere that will ensure that the
State Independent Electoral Commission ‘organize, undertake and
152
supervise election to local government councils within the state’ without
excessive interference from the state government. The role of the state
government should only be limited to providing the legal framework for the
body.
(e)
In order to circumvent the ‘politics of transaction’ in state-local government
relations, there is need for those aspiring for political office into local
government councils to emerge through a process that encourages
democratic contest. It will ensure the control of elected public officers as
well as their management of local councils by the electorates. One such
system with tested antecedents in Nigeria is the Zero Party System. The
system will reduce transaction cost of participation in political leadership for
poor and powerless local people who have the character, credentials and
credibility to provide good governance. It also minimizes the incidence of
patronage in party politics and therefore free resources for real
development.
Because there are no far-reaching party hierarchy to
influence and access, it is easier for local people to make real choices
about who should represent them. This kind of real choice is constrained
by the high cost of partisan politics. Section 23 (2) (b) of the Rivers State
Independent Electoral Commission Law of 2000 should therefore be
amended to reflect a Zero Party System.
(f)
Open Ballot System for local government elections should be adopted as a
corollary to Zero-Party System. The Open Ballot System will strengthen the
capacity of Zero Party System to translate into electoral empowerment for
the local people and result in quality governance. The Open Ballot System
153
has produced free, fair and credible elections in Nigeria. And since it is a
simple process of election that is widely believed to be credible, it provides
sufficient incentives for elected local government officials to be guided by
the philosophy of service delivery. The combined results of Zero Party and
Open Ballot Systems will protect the institution of local government from
the corrosive and overbearing influence of state government officials.
(g)
Section 162 (6) of the Constitution which provides for ‘the maintenance of
State Joint Local Government Account’ should be deleted and the ‘Joint
Account’ scrapped. The State Joint Local Government Account has not
only become an albatross on local government finance, it is also an
avenue for financial corruption by state government officials. In fact,
financial corruption, orchestrated by the Joint Account, has almost become
a defining feature of state –local government relations. A fall out of this is
logic of primitive accumulation which governs the system. We therefore
recommend direct funding of local government councils from the
Federation Account. Under this arrangement, any local government council
which is not being administered in compliance to ‘democratically elected
local government council’ should not be allowed to draw its allocation from
the Federation Account.
(h)
A law criminalizing non-remittance of 10 percent of State Internally
Generated Revenue to local government councils should be enacted by
the National Assembly.
This will stem the non-remittance of local
government share of state internally generated revenue. We must also
add that in both political and constitutional terms, local taxation is by far the
154
most significant element for local government income, not because of its
level but because it serves to guarantee financial autonomy. We therefore
recommend effective local taxation in order to insulate local government
councils from financial control of the state government.
(i)
In line with the practice in older democratic federations like the United
States of America, Australia and Canada, an Intergovernmental Relations
Commission should be re-established. Nigeria had established the shortlived National Council on Intergovernmental Relations (NCIR) by Decree
No.89 of 1992. The main objective of the Intergovernmental Relations
Commission should be to closely monitor and guide the functional
precincts of the Federal, States and Local Governments. The Commission
should comprise members of the National and State Houses of Assembly,
Local Government Officials, Civil Society Organizations, the Judiciary, and
the
Media.
In
view
of
the
fact
that
Nigerian
experience
in
intergovernmental relations does not offer much promise for voluntary
adherence to the principles of co-operative federalism, we recommend that
the Intergovernmental Relations Commission be made a permanent
institution in the Constitution with defined functions and powers of
moderating intergovernmental administration. The Commission must be
autonomous of the three tiers of government and should be funded from
the Federation Account to ensure its neutrality.
(j)
There should be attitudinal change in the behaviour of those who operate
the institutions of government at both the state and local government
levels. By this, we mean that functionaries at both tiers of government
155
must be accountable and imbibe deep-rooted respect for due process and
rule of law. Under such regime, the two levels of governments must have
specific assigned functions with the financial resources and administrative
structure to work with. No tier of government should continue to be used
for political patronage.
The interaction between the state and local
governments which takes the form of supervision of the former over the
latter in a federal arrangement should not be expressed in restricting local
government autonomy. The supervision should be guided by the tenets of
co-operative federalism.
Therefore, the task before leadership at both
levels of governance must be the use to which government apparatus and
public resources are ordered around public policy in order to reduce the
dysfunctional and conflictual dimensions of intergovernmental relations.
6.3
Conclusion
Going by Anglo-Saxon system of local government adopted by Nigeria in
the Local Government Reform of 1976, this study concludes that what Rivers
State Government established and operated between 1999 and 2007 is a system
of local administration rather than local government. This is because the legal
framework, administrative structure and fiscal design guiding state-local
government relations are adverse to the fundamental features of local
government. Relationship between the State and Local government councils can
best be described as that of hierarchical subordination and ‘inclusive authority
model’.
The model is associated with erosion of local government powers,
incidence of dependency syndrome and indeterminate devolution of powers.
156
Accordingly, every conceivable legal, administrative and fiscal mechanism was
devised to engender the domination of the state over local government councils.
In other words, local governments were subject to the control and manipulation of
the state government because the latter interfered with, altered and profoundly
influenced the conditions of existence of the former.
One tragedy of state-local government relations in Rivers State is the overdependent nature of both tiers of government on federal allocations. They have
not yet developed into centres of productive activities. So, both the state and
local government councils are, basically, ‘rent-collection centres’. This raises not
only a crisis of intergovernmental relations, but also the poor quality of
governance. Undoubtedly, the predatory posture of the state government and
the ‘lame-duck’ disposition of local government councils derives from the failure
to realize that intergovernmental relations within the political and administrative
framework of a country is assessed by its capacity in providing measurable
services to the citizens.
The solution to most problems associated with intergovernmental relations,
irrespective of the level, can be addressed within the precincts of democracy.
We are making reference to the model of democracy that the universal
characterization is simply ‘the rule of the people.’ When practiced at its most
elementary forms, it helps to strengthen institutions of government and guide the
conduct of its operators. Interestingly, this position brings to the fore the synergy
between democracy and federalism as espoused by K.C. Wheare in his
formulation of the ‘federal principle’.
157
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167
APPENDIX I
UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
Does section 7 (1) of the 1999 Constitution guarantee separate existence
and independence of both the state and local government councils as tiers
of governments?
What tier of government does the scale of power and authority favour?
Does the Rivers State Local Government Law make for independence or
subordination of local governments to the state government?
What are the key provisions (sections) of the Rivers State Local
Government Law that engender the complete subordination of local
government councils to the state government?
What is your interpretation of section 7 (1) of the constitution as a political
actor in the state government?
What is your interpretation of section 7 (1) of the constitution as a political
actor in the local government council?
What is the constitutional status of the state and local government council?
What is the manner of allocation of power between the state and local
government councils?
What manner of supervisory role does the Ministry of Local Government
perform over local government councils?
What are the bureaucratic controls the Ministry of Local Government and
Local Government Service Commission exercise over local government
councils?
Is personnel management by Local Government Service Commission
based on needs, merit system or is done to dispense patronage to party
loyalists and supporters?
How can you assess the performance of RSIEC in the conduct of March
2004 Local Government Election?
To what extent did state government officials influence the
nomination/election of local government chairmen and councillors in the
March 2004 local government election?
How does the office of the Special Adviser to the Governor on Local
Government & Chieftaincy Affairs relate with key functionaries of local
government councils?
Who are statutory members of Joint Account Allocation Committee
(JAAC)?
Is JAAC administered in a manner that guarantees financial autonomy of
local government councils?
Comment generally on the structure of state-local government relations in
Rivers State.
168
APPENDIX II
INTERVIEW SECHEDULE
S/No
Designation of Interviewee
1
Bills Officer, Rivers State House of Assembly.
2
Secretary, House Committee on Education,
Rivers State House of Assembly.
Former Member, Rivers State House of
Assembly.
Former Member and Chairman, House
Committee on Local Government Affairs, Rivers
State House of Assembly (2003 – 2007).
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Director of Planning, Research and Statistics,
Ministry of Local Government.
Head of Department, Monitoring, Ministry of
Local Government.
JAAC Accountant, Ministry of Finance.
Assistant Director, JAAC Office, Ministry of
Finance.
Former Director, Research and Planning, Local
Government Service Commission.
Member,
Local
Government
Service
Commission (1999-2004)
Director of Administration, Local Government
Service Commission.
Electoral Officer, Rivers State Independent
Electoral Commission.
Electoral Officer, Rivers State Independent
Electoral Commission.
Former Special Adviser to the Governor on
Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs (1999
– 2003).
Assistant Director, Audit, Office of State
Accountant General for Local Government.
Former Caretaker Committee Chairman of
Local Government Council (Rivers East
Senatorial District) 2003 – 2004.
Former Chairman of Local Government Council
(Rivers East Senatorial District) 2004 – 2007.
Place of
Interview
Assembly
Complex, PH.
Assembly
Complex, PH.
Interviewee’s
Residence PH.
Interviewee’s
Residents PH.
Date of
Interview
6/01/2010
Secretariat
Complex, PH.
Secretariat
Complex, PH.
Secretariat
Complex, PH.
Secretariat
Complex, PH.
Secretariat
Complex, PH.
Interviewee’s
Residence PH.
Secretariat
Complex, PH.
Emouha
10/02/2010
Interviewee’s
Residence PH.
Choba, PH.
25/02/2010
6/10/2010
23/01/2010
24/01/2010
12/02/2010
13/04/2010
13/04/2010
15/04/2010
18/04/2010
20/04/2010
23/02/2010
11/04/2010
Secretariat
Complex, PH.
Interviewee’s
Residence PH.
15/04/2010
PDP State
Secretariat,
PH.
16/03/2010
17/04/2010
169
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
NULGE Chairman, Obio/Akpor Local Council
Government Council.
Headquarters,
Rumuodomaya.
Secretary, Bonny Local Government Post Graduate Hall,
Council.
Uniport.
A former Leader, Abua/Odual Local Abua Town.
Government (2004 – 2007)
Former Leader, Ikwerre Legislative Isiokpo.
Council (2004 – 2007)
Leader, Obio/Akpor Legislative Council Woji, PH.
(2004 – till date).
Former
Head
of
Personnel G.R.A, Port Harcourt
Management, Omuma, Opobo/Nkoro
and Emuoha.
Former
Head
of
Personnel Elelenwo Port
Management,
Akuku-Turo
and Harcourt
Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni.
Chief Administrative Officer, Akuku- Abonnema
Toro Local Government Council.
Former Leader, Ogu–Bolo Legislative Rukpokwu, Port
Council.
Harcourt
Councillor, Degema Local Government Port Harcourt
(2004 – 2007)
Councillor, Tai Local Government Port Harcourt
Council (2004 – 2007)
Former Head of Local Government Port Harcourt
Administration in Etche, Eleme and
Andoni.
Former
Head
of
Personnel Interviewee’s
Management, , Obio/Akpor, Ahoada Residence, Omuma
East and Etche Local Government
Councils.
Former Treasurer, Port Harcourt and Aluu, Rivers State
Ikwerre Local Government Councils.
Former, Head of Works Department, Ozuoba, PH.
Etche.
Councillor Ward 3 Etche (2004 – 2007) Rukpoku , PH.
Councillor Ward 10 Obio/Akpor (2004 Rumuodomaya
Till date).
Secretary, Emohua Local Government Rumuekini, PH.
Council (2004 – 2006).
Supervisor for Women Affairs, Khana Port Harcourt.
Local Government Council (2008 – till
date).
NULGE Chairman, Emohua Local Choba, PH
Government Council.
24/03/2010
02/04/2010
20/02/2010
15/05/2010
19/02/2010
25/04/2010
17/03/2010
27/03/2010
03/04/2010
19/04/2010
26/03/2010
03/05/2010
20/04/2010
19/02/2010
12/04/2010
07/05/2010
22/04/2010
26/04/2010
26/03/2010
02/04/2010
170
171