First of all, ignore James Ibori. Ignore the ex-convict. He has three convictions in his entire life in three different times, in two different decades, anybody with such character cannot be on the side of the common man. Don’t ever make the mistake of being on the same side as James Ibori.

James Ibori is from the same clique of former Governors who held Local Councils so tight for political leverage. As a political godfather somewhat, upsetting the status quo at grassroot politics don’t play exactly how they want. And simply put, what he wants is a narrow, self-centered, serving only a few Nigerians (Governors and former Governors who still maintain political influence in their States) Local Councils. What the Supreme Court ruled is to reduce the extent to which Local Councils are used as a political tool for these Governors and former Governors.

Ordinary Nigerians must support the intention to increase Local Council’s capacity to deliver on governance beyond the influence of Governors. One of these is providing a constitutional backing for Councils to receive funds directly from the Federation Account. The Supreme Court also ruled against the previous practice of Governors sacking Local Council Chairmen arbitrarily and withholding Local Council funds.

Nigeria still battles a lack of fundamental development because States have proven to be inadequate in providing access to them. Primary Schools, Primary Health Care Centers are almost totally neglected. According to Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Nigeria had 10million out of school children between six to 11. As of 2023, the mortality rate of infants aged under one-year-old in Nigeria was measured at 55.17. This means that there were about 55 deaths of children under the age of one year per 1,000 live births. Clean water is still inaccessible to a lot of communities. In 2018, Nigeria’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector was declared to be in a state of emergency by the Government. In 2019, a combination of inadequate infrastructure, a lack of required human capital, poor investment, and a deficient enabling regulatory environment — amongst other challenges — meant that approximately 60 million Nigerians were living without access to basic drinking water. 80 million people had no access to improved sanitation facilities, while 167 million couldn’t access basic handwashing facilities. These indices are embarrassing for the biggest oil producer in Africa since the 70s. Increasing Local Council’s capacity to deliver on governance solves most of these issues by default.

As the closest Government to the people, accountability will be easier. Inputs will have better outputs and far-reaching impacts because Council’s purview covers a lot of fundamental, essential & critical sectors of human life. Primary education (a fundamental right of every Nigerian), primary health care, access to clean water, building and maintenance of public infrastructures like roads, parks, markets, drainages, sewage systems. These things are completely nonexistent in majority of the 774 Local Councils in Nigeria. A simple political shift in paradigm to empower Local Council’s capacity to deliver will see better coordination of life at the grassroots. Roads and drainages are cleaner, towns are better planned, out of school kids are reduced, infant mortality rate is reduced and subsequently life expectancy improves. Communities have a better chance of seeing supply of clean water. Standard of living is generally improved on once capacity is given to Local Councils. This is almost a fact.

Don’t listen to James Ibori, don’t listen to any other politician with a narrow interest. The next discussion should be about revisiting the revenue sharing formula to allocate more to the Local Councils (I suggest 50% from FAAC, up from the current 20.60%).

Lalasticlala, Mynd44

medium.com/@benjaminbenzorla/a-strong-case-for-local-council-autonomy-a6035681f811

The autonomy is only for collection of federal allocations, not for spending the allocations. So, what has really changed?

Remember that every state has its own electoral body (not INEC) that conducts local government chairmanship elections. With this, governors will make their puppets LGA chairmen and decide how those chairmen spend the federal allocations.

If you think the chairmen can decide to disobey the governors, think of how many LGA chairmen that are clean enough to boldly and successfully disobey their political godfathers. Remember that the puppets selected as LGA chairmen are the ones with rotten profiles that can be used to blackmail and silence those chairmen when those chairmen prove stubborn.

The road to real Council autonomy is very long. We've taken the first step. We cannot achieve everything all in one go. First things first. Right now, the Council Chairmen have been empowered with a statutorily protected fund, which means planning is easier, execution is better because the funds are guaranteed. Another guarantee is tenure completion. Governors can no longer fire them arbitrarily. What this guarantees again, is better planning and better execution since funds and their position are constitutionally backed devoid of the kind of interference we've seen before from Governors.