- Fashola said the current constitution was not drafted with local government autonomy in mind.
Former Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has shared his perspective on the topical issue of local government autonomy in Nigeria.
There have been strident calls for local government autonomy in Nigeria in recent years.
Weighing in on the matter, Fashola said expecting local governments in Nigeria to function independently under the current constitution is a pipe dream.
Speaking on Saturday, when he featured on ‘Sunrise’, a programme on Channels Television, the former Lagos State governor said the current constitution was not drafted with local government autonomy in mind.
He noted that the state houses of assembly and state governments legally micromanage the local councils which hampered their ability to function efficiently and optimally.
According to him, the fact that the state houses of assembly make laws for local governments is an external influence that contradicts the idea of autonomy.
“I think that the debate we must have, debate we must have, is whether we really want autonomous local governments. It’s a debate that must be had. 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,” he said.
Fashola noted that state governments control land, which is an asset that local governments require to provide infrastructure.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria 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.