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Assemblymen and local council chairmen
A.B.C. NWORAH
OF recent,
the whole nation has been wailing against the excesses and financial
recklessness of local government chairmen. For the billions of naira allocated
to the local governments each month, there is only very little, if any at all,
to show for it. Instead, what we have are local government chairmen and ‘loyal’
councillors putting up towering mansions, amassing cars of all sophistication,
duplicating tours at home and abroad, where they quietly acquire houses, and
earn allowances for visits not made, diverting local government development
funds into their private accounts at home and abroad. They falsely claim the
looted public funds are for purchases or services overseas, which are not seen
by anyone, or for health treatments.
These are men and women who, by the
localized nature of their jobs, are supposed to live among the local people and
interact closely with them and share their joys and sorrows. But what do we
find? A total detachment from those they are supposed to feel their pulse and
enlighten their plight. Money comes in tens of millions of naira every month to
each LGA, but when one looks around, one wonders if the money has not arrived.
If one dares ask questions, one’s life is threatened because their close friends
and beneficiaries would not stomach such interruptions in their newfoundland.
They would hire assassins to deal with the inquisitor, or at best send their
friends and relatives initially to warn him against blocking their way to
fortunes, advising him to wait for his turn, or for the turn of his favourite.
In other words, the main objective of
seeking and attaining local government posts is to go for one’s slice of the
national cake, no matter what else happens to the victim, which in this case are
those whose interests he is supposed to protect and to foster, and that is why
the "do or die" battle in local government contests, why graduates, including
lawyers, accountants and teachers from the three strata of our educational
system and businessmen, retired senior civil servants pose stumbling head on
each other’s entry. These are men and women who would otherwise have snubbed
such a call to service in the good old days. It is no more like in the military
era when such services carried high respect and consequently high expectations,
which in most case with fulfilled, despite the meagre finances available then.
I quite agree that the higher legislative
centres are hardly better in terms of transparency and accountability, but two
wrongs do not make a right. We must start from somewhere, even without first
removing the mote in our own eyes. The local government are structurally,
physically, and personally closer to the people and we know how it pains when
one close to you hurts you, particularly one from whom one expects prompt and
close succour. One can go to the press and blast a State or National
Assemblyman, and it may just end with exchange of words, with eventual handshake
sometimes, or even an eventual utilization of the criticisms. You cannot do it
with local people or your life would be a target, as they are really local in
perceptions and quite close to one - indeed a terror to one. I am not exempting
the upper house from vengeful killings, but that of local people could be
immediate and silent.
The president can lecture them as much as
he likes, the governors can arrange seminars for them as many as possible, but
one cannot change their objective, and that is to make money, as fast as
possible since they can no longer make names, and having spent one’s fortune to
contest for the chairmanship, i.e. for the control of funds, there is really not
much one can do, and one cannot talk to them for obvious reasons including those
already mentioned.
Why then are the Assemblymen out to
protect them at all cost? It’s quite simple. These chairmen are central bank of
their own, and the poor legislator would need their patronage for future
elections, and must therefore secure their friendship now that he is in a
position to, not when he has left the House and is no more of relevance to them
- a sort of "Scratch my back and I scratch your back". That is what the whole
game is all about, not that the legislator do not see and feel the gross
failures of these LG men all over the country, with hardly any exception. The
orientation is there: "Go there and make it or be doomed. You may never have the
opportunity again, as it is rotatory and with no name to protect".
What is more disturbing is that the
electorate do not know what to expect of local government council. No one knows
their functions, if any were assigned to them, so that one does not really know
what to watch out for and what to criticize. He is just left to his magnanimity
and generosity. It is on the state government that all the brunt of any failure
or lapses fall. Even when husbands and wives quarrel, it is the state government
that caused it, not the local government. Why do they behave so isolatedly from
the public like men with diplomatic immunity?
State governments are known to be
providing major roads just like the federal government. They are known to be
providing electricity, palpable daily health, food, water, sanitation, conflict
resolutions, industries- directly or indirectly, real commerce, not just the
local buying and selling, and other essentials of life. What then is the duty of
the local governments? A leach to state coffers or just a haemorrhagia appendage
to what should have been the state funds with just a little bit left to them for
mopping up what eluded the states? I do not say that the State governments are
angels, but it is better to have a central body everyone can blame for failures,
than several centres no one can blame.
If the functions of the local governments
are not to be peripheral, it should be specified to the nation what their
functions are for the superfluous amounts they are being given every month and
the state government must know their plans. If for example the state government
built water reservoirs, the local governments can at least build a borehole in
every village within their jurisdiction? We know it does not cost a million
naira to install a sound borehole, hence many of us even have it in our private
residences. Why can’t the local government spend the million and provide
boreholes for the villages? In most local councils there are no more than 50 or
60 villages. Out of the over N500 million that go to the smallest LGA in the
country, why can’t the council spend only 10% of this (i.e. about 50 million
naira) to provide a sound borehole in each village every year, as for some time
to come the country just has to be putting up with boreholes, whilst the state
governments are gradually erecting large reservoirs for larger areas?
The states build major roads. Why can’t
the local government take up the streets within the various towns in their
jurisdiction? Not just grading but tarring too! The local councils cannot build
all the streets within their life-span but there must be evidence of a good
start, and the succeeding local government administration would continue from
where the former stopped. After all, development is a continuous process.
Why can’t they put up and equip standard
elementary schools and pay the teachers, even though the latter may not like it?
Why can’t they undertake village street electrifications and why can’t they
initiate joint development ventures with town unions where there could be a
measure of transparency, which would surely galvanize the rural dwellers into
paying their taxes, dues, and rates, knowing that something is forthcoming.
The only time we hear of local governments
is when money comes in, and it is shared out, looted, or when local council
workers are not paid and they carry placards in protest. If anyone knows when
else, let him say it. Why is that nearly a third of the nation’s earnings is
being squandered by a few surreptitious, unproductive individuals? It is only
the Assemblymen that know why, not the citizens and the electorate. The
President would be doing a great disservice to his early intention of
streamlining the functions and finances of local government in line with the
economic realities of today. Let us have just one headache, the state, and not
multiple headaches created by the local governments. They should be made purely
under control of the state government as it used to be before, even during the
colonial government, with effective visible results.
The state and the federal governments
should delineate their responsibilities and agree on attendant funds for them,
whilst the state governments additionally monitor their implementation. Since
they have woefully failed in their responsibilities as independent bosses, it is
only commonsense that they should be made to work under higher control and
supervision. There is really no other way out, or we shall only be condoning and
promoting evil in the name of democracy or of experimenting. We would be
encouraging the "I chop, you chop" metality.
A father may be rascally, but he is not
going to promote rascality amongst his children, and when his rascality becomes
unbearing, his children would react. This could be the relationship between the
state and local governments, but certainly not most state government are
rascally, whilst most local governments are. Please let us groan under one
headache, the state, which we can fittingly deal with, rather than several
headaches for which drugs would not go any distance.
•Dr. Nworah is the chief medical director,
Nworah Hilltop Hospital, Amawbia, Anambra State.
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