N40 Billion Delta Loan, Evidence of Dysfunctional Local Government System in Nigeria
No individual, society, state or nation becomes great by living on borrowed funds; but the recent approval of a credit facility amounting to N40 billion by the Delta State House of Assembly for the Delta state Governor, Sheriff Francis Oborevwori, for the purpose of assisting the 25 local councils settle their accumulated pensions owed to retired primary school teachers and local government employees in the state has merit.
It is also in tandem with friends and believers in the doctrines of common good, justice and equity, conversant with the excruciating economic hardship suffered by local government pensioners in Delta State as a result of this protracted disappointments and local government’s inabilities to pay these pensioners their statutory entitlement.
Oborevwori’s latest action tells us as a nation that the country’s administrative structure is dysfunctional, that local councils across the nation are constrained by a centralising constitution that over-empowers the centre weakens the component states and local councils that lack the authority to control their own resources, or secure lives and property within their territories.
The Delta government’s action becomes more appreciated when one remembers that it exposed how financially emasculated and economically unhealthy the Local Councils across the nation have become. The Federal Government should cede more revenue generation powers/privileges to the local Councils in the country.
Call it restructuring, fiscal federalism or structural reconfiguration, you may not be far from the truth. Supporting the urgency of the above assertion is the ugly report that the 25 Local Councils in the state (Delta) owed retired local government workers by 25 local councils in the state N51billion since 2016.
The unfortunate aspect of this narrative is that this local Councils insolvency- challenge is not Delta state-specific but exists in both covert and overt forms and degrees among all the local councils in the Federation.
Nigeria has a choice, to restructure by plan or by default. A planned restructuring will be collaborative, systematic, and redesign Nigeria, yet keep it whole. A default restructuring will happen, certainly not by choice, but definitely like an uncontrolled experiment with attendant risks and indefinite outcomes.
The hour has come for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Federal Government to identify the imperfection in the nation’s Federal system and have them amended. This is inevitable and eminently desirable.
Utomi Jerome-Mario is the Programme Coordinator (Media and Policy), Social and Economic Justice Advocacy (SEJA), Lagos.
Credit Source: The Guardian
