By Abiodun Awolaja

“THE owl wakes us,” wrote the Nigerian poet Tanure Ojaide in the epochal poem of that same title, “from a nightmare/And we greet our saviours/With songs.” Emmanuel Agim, Justice of the Supreme Court, gave life to these lines once again this week: “Demands of justice require a progressive interpretation of the law. It is the position of this court that the federation can pay LGA allocations to the LGAs directly or pay them through the states. In this case, since paying them through states has not worked, justice of this case demands that LGA allocations from the federation account should henceforth be paid directly to the LGAs.” If this judgment had been given in a clime like the United States, it would have drawn fierce criticism from conservatives, most of whom subscribe to a textualist, not progressive, view of the constitution. Textualism implies that you interpret the law in the spirit in which it was written, regardless of your personal feelings. In this case, a progressive judge has invalidated the express provisions of Nigeria’s constitution which mandates that LG allocations be shared through the Joint Accounts Allocations Committee (JAAC). Supreme Courts get away with this kind of activism, but the law is clear on who has the power to change the law: the legislature. But what gave rise to JAAC in the first place? Well, the progressivism versus textualism debate is not popular in Nigeria, and so I guess Agim and his team are on safe ground.

Since the Supreme Court made a “landmark” pronouncement on Thursday outlawing governors’ stranglehold on LG funds, a lot of emotional garbage has surfaced. As can be easily detected, the ensuing discussions are hardly nuanced. Readers, I do not begrudge those celebrating the judgment of their moment of happiness. It is their right. Lateef Fagbemi, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, led the hallelujah chorus, with a lot of tautology: “Naturally one will be happy, should be happy. Nigerians are happy about it. I call it local government emancipation judgment because it has really emancipated the local governments from the shackles of the past and I hope the local government officials will seize the opportunity to develop their various local governments.” Great! However, from experience, I have learnt to embrace methodological skepticism when I see the FG, which typically disobeys court orders, lauding judgments in this manner. But that’s by the way.

Against the clear lessons of history, we are being told that a judgment which merely rights a wrong within the overarching error called LG system in Nigeria will emancipate the LGs and facilitate real development. Naysayers, as happened for instance during the Mohbad movement, are being branded enemies of state. All well and good. But I want to put this on record: if the apex judgment delivers the kind of emancipation that Nigerians are hoping for in respect of the LGs, then I will simply yield this space to a superior voice. Those celebrating the judgment may be right in the fact that it purportedly frees LGs from governors’ dictatorship, but they are flat-out wrong in projecting that it will “liberate” the LGs or bring real development to local communities. The lessons of history completely nullify any such optimism. Under Olusegun Obasanjo when LG bosses had full control over their funds, they did not deliver any concrete development. At the time, LG chairmen and councilors ran the councils like pirates, acquiring properties all over the place. This was one of the reasons Obasanjo established the EFCC to instill some fear in the country’s politicians, who from the federal to LG level looted the country blind. At the moment, otherwise perceptive individuals are giving the impression that LG chairmen and councilors are waiting in the wings, prepared to unleash massive development on Nigeria, and that’s profoundly sad. What did they do when they had full access to the money? Have we addressed the internal accountability issues? That’s a whole topic on its own, and it’s key.

LG chairpersons were swimming in money under OBJ; they will soon under Tinubu. Thursday’s judgment merely replaced one leech with another, solidifying the destructive centralism that Nigeria calls LG system. Nigeria’s federation in which the centre created the states and imposed LGs on them is utterly horrendous. There is an LG called Atisbo in Oyo State. Anyone remotely familiar with Yoruba knows that this is a strange word. Imagine Washington determining what some corner in down town Ohio or Jeffersonville should be called! Well, the colonialists got away with Ikeja because at least that one sounds plausible. Here we are talking of autonomy for LGS that are no LGs in any sane sense.

The ideal thing is for LGs to be self-sustaining, operating under state law, and not relying on anything called federal allocation. If as villages and communities we “own” our LG and do not expect anything from Abuja, nobody is going to easily get away with treasury looting. Time was in this country when LGs, which dealt with matters of local concern (markets, health centres, local roads, sanitation, etc) were under the complete supervision of their regional government and when each region adopted the LG framework that suited its fancy. It was under this climate that you had the kind of development witnessed during the First Republic. The so-called LG reform undertaken by the Obasanjo military government was erroneous.

If Nigeria really wants progress, it will fashion out a constitution that completely abrogates the current 774 LGs, which are nothing but outposts of an ethnically unbalanced military created to rob one part of the country to develop another, and set up a system for self-sustaining LGs created under states/regions according to their needs, and having absolutely nothing to do with federal allocation. Just so we are clear, I support LGs having control of their funds, but I completely object to the current system where they are technically neither under states nor under the FG. It is a confused system created by utterly confused people. Those mad with joy this week will cry profusely in the coming months. I remember the time workers were crying out to governors, saying their LG chairmen weren’t paying them. I also recently saw a social media post by an ex-council boss, a man accused of monumental crimes by his own councilors, saying that the apex court had vindicated him over his public spat with his state governor!

Nigeria’s current “LGs” can never guarantee development. Since, in my view, they aren’t even LGs in a real sense, any talk of LG autonomy becomes superfluous.