The former Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof Itse Sagay (SAN), has made a case for the removal of “Local Government” from the Constitution, describing its listing as a third-tier of government as an “aberration.”
The constitutional lawyer, who made the submission in an interview with New Telegraph, said a functional federal structure only recognises two tiers of government: federal and states. While faulting funding of LGs from the “centre,” the social critic declared that local government “is a state matter 100 per cent.”
Speaking against the backdrop of the recent judgment of the Supreme Court granting financial autonomy to local governments in the country, the scholar noted: “I want to stress something. In a federation, you cannot have three tiers of government.
Local Government cannot form a tier of government in a federation; only two tiers in a federation: Federal and State. “Local Government is completely under, subsumed, under the state. It is not a federal thing. “It is an anomaly in Nigeria, that you have local government in the Constitution. It’s a gross anomaly; it’s never done.
“That is why I have never been impressed with the alteration of the Constitution being done by the National Assembly since 2000; they have not touched anything substantial.
“One of the first things they should do is to remove local government from the Constitution completely, and make it a subject matter of the state, so that the state will create its own local governments, and fund its own local governments.
“It is contrary to the whole concept of federalism. Number one, there should be no mention of local government in the Constitution, and there should be no funding of local governments from the centre.
The state should create its local governments; the number it wants, and funds it. “That was why you had that clash between Lagos State and Federal Government early in this democracy. Lagos State wanted more local governments, and then it couldn’t go through all the processes. It tried, but it wasn’t concluded.
Then it went ahead and created its local governments.” The silk concluded: “Any reference to local governments, either in terms of naming or payments and allocation of funds to them, everything should be eliminated from the Constitution, and allow states to create and fund their local governments absolutely alone.”
- Source: https://newtelegraphng.com/sagay-to-nass-remove-local-govts-from-constitution/
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