1 Kayode Ihaza & 2Clement Oribhabor
+2347039404999 +2348053913006
kayode.ihaza@uniben.edu clement.oribhabor@uniben.edu
1,2 Department of Public Administration , University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria
ABSTRACT
There is the popular misrepresented view of Nigeria as being a federal political community constituting three autonomous governmental levels commonly referred to as three tier structure of government, a notion that implies that the relationship existing among the three governmental levels are coordinate, and not sub-ordinate in line with Kenneth Wheare’s postulation of federalism. This paper argues that the autonomy of the three tiers which constitute Nigerian federation is not operational, but only exist on paper. In actual fact, the local government has no place in Nigeria’s federalism with respect to exercising reasonable governmental autonomy, as evidenced in the subjugation of its mandates and functions by both the federal and state governments. This trend is worsened by the lack of meaningful autonomy granted the local governments by amended 1999 Constitution, rather it subsumed them under the control and regulation of state governments. It is in this perspective that this paper investigates the praxis of local government financial autonomy in Nigeria through the application of the secondary methods of data collection. The study found the absence of financial autonomy in Nigeria’s local governments in spite of different reforms carried out and judicial review of enabling laws of local government in recent times towards ensuring autonomy of the local government councils. The paper advocated some recommendations, which include the amendment of various aspects of the amended 1999 Constitution which places local government under the direct control of state government, the effective implementation of the recent proscription of Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) between states and local governments by the Supreme Court of Nigeria to allow federal allocations get to the local governments directly without going through the state governments, among others.
Keywords: Constitutional provisions, local government autonomy, politicization