It is hard to say, but it is true: The Nigerian political elite do not believe in the constitution under which they claimed to have assumed power. A friend has explained this hypocritical phenomenon by pointing out that flouting a supposedly supreme constitution would not be a big deal for our politicians if they could so routinely pay lip service to reverence of the Holy Quran and Holy Bible when they all chorus "So help me God" during their oath-taking rituals, how much less which some of them actually took part in drafting.
The truth, however, is that until we learn to play by the rules, whether spiritual or temporal, ours would remain a society that may never achieve its full potential, because rules are made to prevent arbitrariness and anarchy. But when, by choice or by default, people, for that matter, those at the helms, habitually act outside the rules that were commonly agreed upon, then, you can expect a communal failure sooner or later and it is therefore not surprising that Nigeria has failed to gain credible traction in the fundamental area of nation building several years into her sovereign nationhood.
Our leaders, and also the led, do not seem to see the huge moral delict involved in an individual willfully acting contrary to the pledge that he openly made before the people on whose stewardship he was elected to serve. More than that, it touches on the key issues of responsibility and accountability — the twin pillars upon which all representative governments are established. In other words, there is a social contract whose terms and conditions ought to be fulfilled by all concerned, both on grounds of personal honour and as a normative community proposition: a duty.
I have always argued that the only difference between a government and sheer banditry is the application of the Rule of Law. Otherwise, life in the State of Nature which predated constitutional democracies was noted for its being nasty, brutish and short. We ran away from that primitive social set-up by embracing democracy and the rule of law. It is therefore tragic that it is that same unpalatable and otiose mentality of yore that has continued to dominate the thinking process of our leadership; hence life has been progressively deteriorating in society.
The lowest level to demonstrate this unwillingness to play by the rules is in the way local government councils are being managed today across the country. The lip service, which has come to characterise our politicians' claim to running a constitutional democracy, is profoundly demonstrated by the way and manner elected governors across the various political parties have truncated and emasculated the same system which the constitution textually enjoins them to guarantee and nurture for the good of the society.
It is instructive to note that local governments have always been a part of modern government in Nigeria since the colonial times. Up till the First Republic, the local governments were active participants in the governing process of Nigeria. In those days, we had local governments performing several grass -roots functions in the areas of sanitation, education, health and security, as there were local government police forces in service all across the country performing the now missing community policing of the people. All these started to fall apart during the period the military illegitimately intervened in the governing process between 1966 and 1979.
In 1976, there was wholesale reform of the local government system. Under that reform, the councils were given more responsibilities and a great deal of autonomy in the management of their affairs, especially their finances. One drawback that was pointed out then was that the Dasuki Reports created a uniform local government system across the country in spite of the fact that local conditions and peculiarities are better taken care of at that level.
It would have been necessary for each state to design its local governments the best way suitable to it and not the present unformed military-type arrangement which has only worked to the detriment of the local government system as a whole. While the constitution seems to recognise the need for local governments to be managed in accordance with local realities by providing that "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 fact that they all have to look up to Abuja for their sustenance makes creative variety impossible.
Unfortunately, the 'democratically elected' state governments that inherited the modalities for running the councils under the constitution have held on to this unification provision as the justification for emasculating the councils within their boundaries, forgetting that the power given to the state governments over the local governments is predicated on their use to further the declared constitutional objective of guaranteeing the system of local government by "democratically elected councils." Within the parameters of these constitutional provisions, it is evidently unconstitutional for a local government to be run by any means or methods that is NOT by way of "democratically elected" local governments.
It follows therefore that the wholesale practice that has seen state governments dissolving duly elected local governments and replacing them by the constitutionally alien mechanism of caretaker-ship is a direct usurpation of a constitutional guaranteed order — an act which is worse than a coup d'état.
Nigerians are, today, dissatisfied with the local governments due to their ineffectiveness, leading to the strange call for their abolishment as if it is possible to manage a modern state without strong and efficient municipalities. Why would anyone who knows the value of local governments dare suggest, for example, that the mayoralties of New York and London should be scrapped? Here in Nigeria, some can still recall with nostalgia the noble roles played by the old Lagos City Council and many others. Until we perfect democratic governance at the grass-roots level at which the local government system was meant to serve as the foundation, all efforts at the various state houses and even the Villa to govern the country would remain a distant effort far remote from the average Nigerian across the nooks and crannies of Nigeria.
Any doubt why Nigerians are still asking, 'where is the government?'
