A former Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola, said it is “unrealistic” to expect local governments in Nigeria to function independently under the current constitution.

Fashola, a senior advocate, SAN, shared this view on Channels Television’s Sunrise on Saturday, July 19.

This came amid the growing call for local government autonomy, following a recent Supreme Court ruling.

In July 2024, the apex court barred governors from dissolving democratically elected local government councils and granted financial autonomy to local governments in Nigeria, The ICIR reported.

In his argument, Fashola pointed out that local councils cannot carry out their responsibilities without the interference of the State House of Assembly and the State Government.

He said the state houses of assembly make laws for local governments, which are external influences that contradict the idea of autonomy.

“I think that the debate we must have is whether we really want autonomous local governments. It’s a debate that must be heard. As it stands today, it is unrealistic to expect autonomy for local governments created by the Constitution.

“They were not meant to be autonomous; that is my view after a very close reading of certain provisions of the Constitution. Some of those provisions provide, for example, that the local government in its economic activities and all of that will have laws made for it by the state House of Assembly,” Fashola said.

According to him, the legal and ordinary meaning of autonomy suggests that one is acting independently without any outside influence and authority.

The fact that state houses of assembly make laws on how local governments function, Fashola maintained that this external influence contradicts the idea of autonomy.

He further posited that land, which is an asset that local governments require to provide infrastructure, is controlled by the state governments.

“The next thing, of course, is to look in the Fourth Schedule of the constitution and look at all of the responsibilities that are assigned to local governments, such as the operation of slaughterhouses, abattoirs for animals, cemeteries, building of rules, advertising hoardings, primary schools, primary healthcare centres, all of those responsibilities are dependent on one item, land.

“And to the extent that the state government controls land, which affects how the local governments will carry out these functions, I didn’t think that autonomy was intended. Now, if we decide that we want autonomous local governments, those are some of the things we have to free up if that is our decision, Fashola argued.

To Fashola, autonomy was not intended, but what he thinks is some sort of collaboration, supervision, and oversight of local governments.

This is what is inherent and can be found in Section 162 of the Constitution, which he cites, that deals with the state’s joint local government account.

He further argued that the cases of many local governments defaulting in the payment of salaries and pensions of primary healthcare workers, primary school teachers, at the return of democracy in 1999, partly gave rise to a joint account between the states and the councils.

“And there’s history behind the enactment of that section because up till 1999, the local governments used to collect their money directly from the Federation account under a process that I think was known as JAAC (Joint Accounts and Allocation or something).

“But in the advent of the democratic era, it was found out that there were so many of them, or not a few of them, who had defaulted in the very basic obligation of paying staff salaries, primary healthcare workers, primary school teachers, salaries and pensions, and there was a backlog of debt, and I met some of that debt when I became Governor and we were working there,” Fashola explained.

He, however, noted that the conduct of council elections was a good step towards making local governments independent.