Dele Ogunyemi
15 July 2008
Ibadan — Chairman of Ibadan North West Local Government of Oyo State, Dr. Aderemi Ayodele has advocated an urgent constitutional review to give the local councils in the country autonomy, saying the present provision of the nation's constitution that gives supervisory role of the local administration to the state governments is antithetical to the spirit and letter of true federalism which Nigeria claims to be operating.
While maintaining that the on-going constitutional amendment process would be exploited by the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) in its efforts to ensure that things take the proper perspectives, the council boss disclosed that a position paper on the situation was already been prepared by the group.
Ayodele made the assertion over the weekend while featuring on the "Guest Forum" of the correspondents' Chapel of Oyo State Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), at the Chapel's secretariat, Omitowoju in Ibadan.
According to him, the state government's supervisory provision over the local councils had been hampering the performance of some of the chairmen especially as regards the peg it placed over the spending capacity of a local government chairman. The development, he said, had been hampering Local Government chairmen with vision to function at the optimum and execute their laudable programmes for the people at the grassroots.
The present arrangement, he said, could be described as a mockery of federal system, saying the time had come for the country to decide on what it really wants.
His words: "Let the country make up its mind on whether it wants the third tier of govenment or not. If it wants it, let the constitution reflect it and allow it to function accordingly. And if not, let the third tier be scrapped and we will all know that there is no local govenment system in our country."
"We are only allowed to spend just N500,000 without recourse to the state government where we must seek for approval before any amount exceeding the stipulated figure would be spent. And this approval may take as long as the state govenment pleases. Yet, time would be going and this is not in the best interest of our people who voted us in and who on daily basis look unto us for succour as the nearest government to them," he said.
He stressed the need for constitutional review to the effect that those at the third tier of government were voted into office the same way those in the first and second tiers were voted while the electorate were similarly looking upon them for succour "as no reasonable person would come into an office of this nature without vision."
Although he remarked that incumbent governor of Oyo State, Otunba Christopher Adebayo Alao-Akala has been fair to the local government administrators in the state, the council boss maintained that "it is desirable that we have the constitutional recognition as a separate government which we are, and not as appendage of the state government as we presently have, because of the time when the pharaoh that knows Joseph not will come to the throne".
Dr. Ayodele, then explained that his mission in local government administration was to ensure that Ibadan North West Local Council was made better than he met it when he might have completed his tenure. To this end, he said, he had already used his almost seven months in office to formulate a masterplan on how to uplift the council area to rank among the best in the country.
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