Keeping Local Government Reform in Focus
Postscript by Waziri Adio
To meaningfully transform Nigeria, we need to alter how governance and critical services are delivered at the local level, the tier of government closest to the people. We need to reimagine the local councils as the pivot for human development in our country. This is not just because of the need for grassroots development that our officials and citizens mouth often. It is because, constitutionally and conventionally, our Local Government Areas (LGAs) have been assigned responsibilities—and resources—that should impact all citizens.
The LGAs should be the first line for basic services, and even for security and democratic participation. This is the level where the presence and essence of government should be felt the most, and where the people should be involved the most in decision-making. Evidence abounds, however, that this most critical tier of government is the most suboptimal, the least capacitated, the least trusted, the most despised—and, ironically, it can be the most distant.
All these need to change if we want to truly alter the development trajectory of our country. But the change will not happen by itself or through isolated or episodic actions. It will only come from carefully structured and thoughtfully implemented reforms. Nigeria is long overdue for a reform of its local administration, a thoroughgoing reform that is anchored on a proper understanding of what is broken with the status quo and why, and one that is aligned with best practices in the field. Such a reform should not just be a federal affair. It should be developed and executed in consultation and collaboration with critical stakeholders. This should be an all-of-society project.
On Tuesday, Agora Policy, with the support of MacArthur Foundation, convened a high-level meeting to focus and sustain policy attention on this important issue. Headlined by Mr. Olawale Edun, the Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, the meeting was designed to achieve a dual purpose: stimulate an informed review of one year of the implementation of the Supreme Court ruling on financial autonomy to Nigeria’s 774 LGAs and to generate actionable recommendations on how to make the country’s local councils more impactful, responsive and accountable.
The discussion was frank and nuanced. This was not surprising given the calibre of the speakers, which included the following: Mr. Edun, who delivered the keynote address; Dr. Kole Shettima, the Country Director of MacArthur Foundation; Prof. Diana Mitlin, the CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC); Prof. Remi Aiyede of the University of Ibadan; Prof. Tunji Olaopa, Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission; Mr. Victor Muruako, Chairman of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission; Ms. Cynthia Rowe, Head of International Cooperation/Development Director at the British High Commission; Ms. Deborah Isser, Lead Governance Specialist at the World Bank; Mr. Bello Bakori of the Local Government Division of ICPC; and Ms. Ojobo Atuluku, Chair of Agora Policy.
At the heart of the policy conversation was the panel session, which offered robust and insightful dissection of the different aspects of the issue. The panellists included: Mr. Akintunde Oyebode, Ekiti State’s Commissioner of Finance and Chair of the Forum of State Commissioners for Finance of Nigeria; Hajia Saudatu Mahdi, the Secretary General of Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA); Hon. Akala Gajere, Technical Assistant at the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) and former chairman of Karu LGA, Nasarawa State; Mr. Samson Itodo, the Executive Director of Yiaga Africa; and Dr. Umar Yakubu, founder of the Centre of Fiscal Transparency and Public Integrity (CFTPI).
There were a few points of disagreement but the consensus was that the ruling by the country’s apex court is yet to be fully implemented and that other things, beyond full implementation of the landmark judgement, need to happen for the LGAs to become the envisaged vehicles for improved and impactful governance. On the status of the ruling, it was confirmed that only LGAs run by democratically-elected officials now receive federation allocations and that the number of states with elected LGA officials dramatically increased from 14 before the ruling to 36. However, the LGAs have not started receiving federation allocations directly and the quality of local elections is still suspect.
The guest speakers, panellists and other contributors offered many ideas that should complement the implementation of the ruling and form part of the building blocks of the LGA reform agenda. The recommendations include the need to: enhance the capacity of local officials in strategic planning, budgeting, and execution; ensure the financial and operational autonomy of state independent electoral commissions; emplace and enforce transparency and accountability mechanisms and other fiscal safeguards; review the revenue-allocation formula to ensure that LGAs can meet their critical obligations without the states; mobilise and empower citizens and civic groups to be more involved in local elections and to hold local leaders to account; facilitate the inclusion of women, youths and other marginalised groups in local administration; and build coalitions for reforms.
One thing that came out clearly for me is that while the two elements of the Supreme Court ruling (direct allocation to LGAs and LGAs run by democratically-elected officials) are steps in the right direction, they are not enough if the goal is improved performance by the LGAs. The assumption that the local councils will automatically perform better if these two conditions are met needs more interrogation. At best, the two elements are a good starting point. They are necessary conditions, but they are not sufficient. Other things need to be layered unto them.
As stated above, we need to look at this as a reform package that is designed to improve the quality of service delivery and democracy at the local level and intended to reposition the local councils as a critical tier of government, not just a mere appendage. A judgement, even when fully implemented, is not a reform. It can be one of the elements of the reform package, but not the entire package. There are different dimensions of the collapse of governance at the local level in the country and it is important to understand these different strands and devise practical ways for addressing them.
The problem is definitely not just an issue of the directness or the adequacy of funding. Nigeria allocates dedicated funding from the federation pool to its local councils: 20.60% of Statutory Revenue and 35% of Value Added Tax (VAT). This is clearly substantial. Calculations by Agora Policy show that a total of N35.22 trillion was allocated to the LGAs between June 1999 and June 2025, which converts to $145 billion at the official exchange rate for each year. This is a tidy sum by any measure. Analysis also shows that Nigeria’s local councils received 22% of total tax revenues in 2022, the second highest among comparator countries.
It is difficult argue about inadequate provisioning. It is event more difficult to link this quantum of resourcing to the quality of governance or the supply of basic services at the local level across the country. It is possible that this is partly because some states are cornering the allocations for the LGAs. But the issue is deeper than that. State capacity is weakest at the local level. Graft, misapplication of resources and misalignment of priorities are widespread and well-documented. The citizens are mostly disengaged or have exited from their local administration, but are more interested in higher tiers of government. This is despite the fact that LGAs should serve as laboratories for participatory governance and as schools of democracy. Accountability mechanisms are thinnest where they are needed the most, and will not suddenly become robust simply because of direct allocations to the LGAs. These and others are the things that are broken at the local level and that constrain good governance. A judgement cannot fix them. We need to adopt a more holistic, reform-minded approach.
Incidentally, Nigeria is not new to local government reforms. In the last 50 years or so, we have tried to tinker with how we structure and run our local councils a number of times. At the policy conversation on Tuesday, Prof Aiyede rightly tagged local government reforms as Nigeria’s unfinished business. In 1976, we undertook a major local government reform. This remains our most comprehensive till date. It defined local councils as we know them today. Subsequent reform efforts, such as the one by the Dasuki Committee in1984, have been attempts at modifying the 1976 reform.
As we approach the 50th anniversary of the 1976 reform, we need to undertake a thorough review of our third tier of government, and align its conception and operations with our current realities as well as with lessons and trends in effective local governance across the world.
