There’s No Local Government Autonomy In Any Federalism – Adebayo Tackles Ananaba

Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Oyo State, Southwest Nigeria (2011 -2015), Senator Mutalubi Ojo Adebayo has stated that there is nothing like local government autonomy in any federalism.

Gatekeepers News reports that Adebayo said federalism only has two components which are the Central or the National Government and the State Governments and or the regional governments.

Adebayo said this in a statement he signed on Tuesday, in response to Prof Paul Ananaba’s comments on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Monday.

Ananaba had faulted state governors over the inability of the National Assembly to progress with the intended constitutional amendment.

He said, “When you give local government autonomy, the state governments are likely to collapse. How do these states make money? You know the problem of section 162 of the Constitution, state joint account. So, when these monies come, how many of these local governments indeed get their allocation as they come from FAC?”

Ananaba added “We need to allow the three levels of the government to have some degree of autonomy and operate properly. If the constitution remains as it is, local governments will just be appendages to governors and I don’t see any governor that will allow local government autonomy to take place.”

Adebayo, while responding to this said, “All that he said were just not a gross misconception of the law but he indeed turned the law on its head with respect to the subject of the discourse.

“We are talking of the local government autonomy in Nigeria because that phrase strayed and or was smuggled into the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria when it was not meant to be there in the first instance at all. It was a very wrong and misplaced insertion in the Constitution by those who hurriedly prepared and drafted the Constitution.”

The former Oyo State Commissioner for Justice added that “In a true federalism, the appropriate name is the National Government and (2) The State Governments and or the regional governments as the case may be.”

According to him, it is the federating units or the component units in the country or in the federation that agree to come together to form a union and thus create a government at the Centre or the National level.

While stating that, there are just 2(two) tiers or levels of government which are the National/Central/ Federal Government and the State Governments, Adebayo added that “There is nothing known as the third tier of government and there cannot be any 3rd tier or level of government known as the local government because the local government are just or mere creation of the state government for ease of governance. They merely exist at the pleasure of the state government.”

He wrote further, “Another contraption in our Constitution is the recognition given by the Constitution to the local governments which are absolutely unnecessary and anti-federalism.

“State Governments have absolute and exclusive rights and prerogative to create as many local governments as they may deem fit to have within their respective states without any recourse at all to the Federal or Central or National Government.

“It is the state government who is entitled and has the responsibility exclusive responsibility to administer, run and manage those local governments as they like.”