My Anambra State Councillorship (Mis)Adventure, By Hon Aloy Uzoekwe

This piece is not intended to be a self glorification venture, rather it is aimed at revealing the brunts the Local Governments bear at the hands of the State Governments in the country.

It serves as an expose on the servant/master relationship between the State Gvernments and the Local Governments, and to  correct the erroneous perceptions that the Local Governments are irredeemably corrupt, inconsequential in the body politic as far as democracy dividends deliverables are concerned and that they are mostly manned by misfits.

It also serves as a public service effort to present a first hand account of the factors negating effective Local Government administration in the country using Anambra State as the mirror.

Why Anambra?

It is doubtful if any other State in the Federation operates the type of Local Government system as it obtains in Anambra State. The State has the worst Local Government system of administration in the country.

It practices total abrogation of the powers and functions of the Local Government as spelt out in the Fourth Schedule of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as Amended). The Local Government system operating in Anambra State is retrogressive, anti-people and aboveunconstitutional.

The State is not alone in this anomaly but it tops the chart. However the reader is at liberty to draw his conclusion at the end.

I was one of the three hundred and sixteen men and women who won election into the various Councillorship positions in twenty out of the twenty one Local Government Areas in Anambra State in January, 2014 (there was no election in Nnewi North Local Gvernment Area).

We were subsequently sworn in the same month of January, 2014. And our tenure elapsed in January, 2016 - a term of two years. Maybe it is necessary to highlight that the aspiration and actualisation of the ambition took majority of us (Councillors) twelve years - 2002 to 2014. The long interval was because election was not conducted into the third tier of government in the State throughout the twelve years period.

The interregnum covered the last one year of the Dr Chinwoke Mbadinuju administration, the Dr Chris Ngige rule, the Dame Virgy Etiaba stand in era, and seven years ten months of the Mr Peter Obi government.

At a time we were lampooned as the longest political office aspirants in history. Nonetheless, when the dream eventually materialised and "the Word became Flesh", I was overjoyed. I looked forward to duty with great expectations and promises. But alas! The reality did not match the expectations. What obtained was in utter contrast of what should be. The system is in tethers in Anambra State.

The Local Governments exist only in name in the State, the physical structures known as the Local Governements headquarters are mere edifices. All the functions of the Local Governments including the Finances are usurped by the State Government using the Ministry of Local Government

Affairs and the State Joint Account Committee, a.k.a JAC. The first shock one had was the revelation that our tenure was two years and not three.

The Anambra State House of Assembly had in its wisdom passed a law - "Anambra State Local Government Administration Law 2011" curtailing the tenure of Local Government political office holders in the State to two years from the date of swearing in. As if that was not retrogressive enough, we realised that the monthly Federal Allocations to the Local Government will end up in Awka, the State Capital, from where they can dole out any amount according to their whims to the Local Government Chairman for up keep allowances.

Also sources of revenue generation for the Local Governments like Motor Parks and Markets were seized by the State Government, though they were benevolent enough to release the Abattoirs to the Local Government.The Local Government cannot procure any material or undertake any work without the approval of the State Government through the Ministry for Local Government.

To test the no procurement or work directive, we noted that our Legislative Chambers had no window blinds. We made formal requisition to the Executive Chairman of the Local Government, but he was unable to do anything and till we left office the curtains were not provided. Even the desks we used were the ones we met when we came in.

Perhaps the one incident which revealed the dept of the subversion of democratic ethos in the running of the Local Governments in Anambra State was the budget passage exercise for the year 2014 budget of the Local Government. After our inauguration and during the assigning of various committees in the House, the Leader of the Legislative Council had made me the Chairman House Committee on Finance/Appropriation and Public Accounts. I was eager to prove my mettle with my first real duty.

Little did I know there was no Finance to appropriate as the budget passage exercise ended up mere window dressing. How? I will explain.

The 2014 Appropriation Bill passage of the Local Gvernment enjoyed the full trappings of the legislative tradition befitting such enterprise. The Executive Chairman of the Local Government presented the Appropriation Bill to the Legislative Council with pomp. He was accompanied to the budget presentation ceremony by the respective Supervisors of the Local Government, the Head Local Government Administration of the Local Government, the Treasurer, and the various Head of Departments.

The entire Legislative Cuncil were in attendance. The presentation went well but where the problem laid was the budget defense process at the Committee level by the Supervisors and Heads of Departments.

At the committee stage of the budget passage process, we invited all the Supervisors and the Heads of Departments of the various administrative departments of the Local Government to come and defend the estimates alloted to their departments. It was here we learnt how everybdy have been rendered irrelevant in the running of the Local Governments.

Everybody including the Chairman. The Supervisors and Heads of Departments told us point blank that they made no inputs into the figures and projects captured in the budget. They did not know how they were arrived at.

Everything in the budget proposal was prepared in Awka. After one month of muscle flexing, the futility of our efforts dawned on us. It did not matter if we  'ayed' or 'nayed' the contents of the document, the outcome will amount to nothing. It was obvious the budget just serves as cover for proof of how the Local Government funds were spent. Reluctantly yet regrettably we accepted our impotence and 'ayed' it for them.

But the questions on our lips were;

How can we perform when we were not allowed inputs into a budget meant for our people?

Can outsiders know the needs of our people better than us?

For how long shall we go on this way?

The case was the same in all facets of Local Government administration in the State. The Executive Chairman of the Local Goverment was rendered so impotent that he could not authorise the simplest of tasks. He lacked the power to even sanction erring staff, there are issues on which the Head of Local Government Administration and the Treasurer can override him.

On the issue of Finance, everything is domiciled with the State Joint Account Committee. On a monthly basis one reads the monetary allocation figures as released by the Federal Allocation Committee which accrue to the Local Governments but these monies never reach the beneficiary Local Governments.

It was total annihilation and it expains why all I have to show to my community as the project I attracted to them during my stewardship as their Councillor are one culvert and a market stall of twelve sheds. The free summer vacation classes I organised for students in 2014 including the Youths Soccer Tourney were funded from savings from my previous employment in Port Harcourt. They were in partial fulfillment of my electioneering promises.

I had sailed to victory on the wings of populism as I have served my community in various capacities and still do. I am the pivot of youth affairs in my town. Therefore it is disgraceful and a shame that I could not use my position to impact positively on my people especially the youths despite the hope I gave them and their belief in me.

This disgrace one bears  as a fallout of the subjugation experienced at the hands of the State Government would have been a bit more tolerable had the State Government not extended the same anarchical treatment to the personal earnings of the Local Government political office holders. Our statutory emoluments were withheld by the State Government and where some were paid (salaries) it was about thirty percent of the law stipulated wages.

Till date none of our allowances has been paid by the State Government. The denial of our constitutional financial benefits has pauperised and impoverished one. I and my colleagues remain the only set of political office holders who came out of office poorer than when we went in.

No matter how the reader will view it or how altruistic the intentions of the practitioners maybe, the abrogation of the Local Government system in any form unknown to the letters of the Fourth Schedule of the 1999 Constitution (as Amended) is criminal. The practice as it obtains in Anambra State and (maybe) other States of the Federation is illegal.

It is an aberration. We cannot be eclectic in our interpretation and application of the intents of the Constitution. All men of goodwill must condemn the stultification of the Local Government system in the country especially in Anambra State. We must rise up to demand the dismantling of all structures which aid the State Government in emasculating the Local Governments.

The States Joint Account Committees apart from being drain pipes are conduits for corruption. The Unified Local Government System has outlived its usefulness. Forty years after its adoption, one does not think there is any Local Government anywhere in the country presently without enough home grown manpower to run its affairs. The same applies to the Local Government Service Commission usually domiciled in the State capital like the Ministry of Local Government Affairs.

The Ministry of Local Government Affairs has no right superintending the Local Government except the Federal Government can be persuaded to create a similar Federal Ministry of State Affairs to supervise the State governments. The pith of my logic is let us set the Local Governemnts free to thrive on their own. Like the State Gvernements let them enjoy full autonomy and dictate the course and pace of their existence.

But I am afraid the Governors will not allow this because just as it is in Anambra, the Local Governments are seen as extended agencies of the State Governement whose finaces should be controlled by the State Government. In most cases the annexed funds will be channeled to propaganda tactics of the State Government to befuddle outsiders and celebrate things as trivial as the payment of workers monthly salaries.

Finally I am waiting for the government of Anambra State to pay me the back log of short paid salaries during the two years their law permitted me to serve, and also to offset all my withheld allowances as contained in the Certain Political and Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances) Act 2002 or as is contained in its own revised version of the Act entitled - 'Anambra State Public Officers Salaries/Allownces Law 2007, ANHA/LAW/2007/10.

If they cannot obey the Federal constitution, they can at least be decorous enough to abide by the dictates of a law passed by their own House of Assembly which was ostensibly passed to save cost for the State.

I plead with my people to understand why I failed to deliver tangible democracy dividends to them. Our hands were tied. And to my friends who  have labelled me the most wretched politician to come out of government, I beseech you to help intercede on my behalf to the Anambra State government to pay me my entitlements. As it is written "a labourer must be paid his wages". I cannot lose two ways.

Afterall I and my co-Councillors passed through the same electoral process as did all who occupy political positions at the State level to get elected, the State Governor included. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.


From,
 Hon Aloy Uzoekwe

Served as a councilor in Aguata Local Govt Council (2014 -2016)

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