Comments on: Sub-National Governments as Illusion

By: lanel

lanel — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 05:03:40 +0000

there is a limit to which the sub nationals can affect peoples life no matter the amount of money the subnationals have when the central government propagate wrong policies like tinubu. by the way this preaching about the sub nationals has just been a way for tinubu to pass his failure to the sub nationals. can you remember when the sub nationals were blamed during jonathan's time. let us hot help tinubu pass the buck to someone else

By: Zami

Zami — Sat, 07 Sep 2024 11:05:48 +0000

In reply to Aguiyi. You in the USA no be so?

By: Interessant

Interessant — Sat, 07 Sep 2024 06:27:39 +0000

We are all complicit in the process. Many of us want success, based on emotion. The local government chairman exploits our greed for breakthrough without anything on ground , just based on wishful thinking. Secondly, those who forward the money to the local government chairman did not put any mechanism in place to render them accountable. That way, locality is a continuity to the topmost personality. Sadly, we all encourage this anomalous situation .

By: Middle of Everywhere

Middle of Everywhere — Sat, 07 Sep 2024 02:20:54 +0000

Akin Osuntokun wrote a masterpiece yesterday. Behavioral psychology assumes that environment shapes human behaviour. This is why human actions are often explainable by underlying factors, which act as upstream conditioning what happens downstream.

As it concerns nigeria, the unitary system triggers a mentality that the federal government is responsible for governance (good or otherwise). That's why both the subnational government officials & the people assume governance is not the task of the subnational levels. All attentions go to the centre. In the US people barely emotionally relate with the federal govt. That is to say, the FG does not exist in the mind of the people. What concretely exists in their minds are local & state governments, in that order.

The effectiveness of these levels cannot be coerced externally. If the officials have to be coerced, then it is mechanical & can never be effective. It is like using the police or courts to regulate a home. Love for a partner cannot be effectively externally coerced. Your suggestion is dead on arrival!

The unitary mentality, as Akin said yesterday is an enabler of corruption. As a matter of fact, just yesterday evening I read from Twitter (I'm not calling it "X") that the EFCC chairman says anti-corruption enforcement will never work in nigeria because jailing corrupt nigerians will worsen problems ( https://gazettengr.com/anti-corruption-enforcement-will-never-work-in-nigeria-jailing-corrupt-nigerians-will-worsen-problem-efcc-boss/ ). To be sincere I didn't bother to read the details. But it is already clear what he means. But even if what I have in mind was not what he meant, it is also clear enforcement will take ethnic tones. This is why till date only politicians from minority zones have been convicted & jailed. (In the majority zones, a politician must be an outcast to be jailed!). As a matter of fact, a hardened criminal is today the president of nigeria only because he comes from a majority zone. But someone who was a saint in comparison was hounded out of power in 2015 because he comes from a minority zone, just as another who is an uncommon saint was prevented from power in 2023 also because he comes from a minority zone.

The nigerian unitary system is also an enabler of poor governance, waste, instability, lack of cohesion, etc.

P.S:
Biko gbaghaaram. A kporom ihe i kwuru n'izu uka gara aga "nkogheri". I kpasurum iwe, mana e kwesighim i si na-obu nkogheri! Ikperem n'ala

By: introspectiveprognosis

introspectiveprognosis — Sat, 07 Sep 2024 00:05:17 +0000

Your prognosis on governors and Local Council Chairmen is gratifying and very timeous.
This is what our obstreperous activists, Labour Unionists and the indolent civil society organizations are running away from.
I’m not sure Sowore knows his Local Government Chairman ditto for Femi Falana SAN yet this is where almost 40% of the Nigerian resources are being frittered away.
All of them kept quiet on the landmark judgement of the Supreme Court as if nothing happened.
One would have thought they would shift their activism to the subnational. Joe Ajaero couldn’t even as much as “shut down” Imo state when he was thoroughly rough handled. He rather vented his anger on the federal government.
As long as there is no insignia of governance at the subnational levels President Tinubu and many presidents after him would just be swimming against the tide.
The benefits of the removal of subsidies on Pms for which Tinubu is taking a hash recompense were all domiciled with the governors, all the palliatives are appropriated by the same governors, they have exclusive control over their IGR and until recently the looting wallets called JAC.
The same governors are the custodians of all the land on which agriculture can thrive yet these governors behave like elected bandits with mandates to pillage the state coffers and handover to another bandit successor.

By: Aguiyi

Aguiyi — Fri, 06 Sep 2024 23:11:06 +0000

Wike is very popular among Abuja taxicab drivers.

When one of them, from Lokoja, was questioned about whether Lokoja, a confluence town, was a nice place to visit. His response was a resounding no. But he was quick to point out that if Kogi State had a governor like Wike, Lokoja would have been a lovely place. Because, in his opinion, Wike has done more for Abuja, in the last 14 months, than his predecessor did in his entire 4 years in office. But that is a story for another day

Wike's instruction — rent a bulldozer and destroy all illegal refineries in your domain — to the 23 Local Government Chairmen, was prescient. Instead of State Police, what Nigeria really needs is Local Government Police. Or to be specific, a Local Government Sheriff System

The Local Government Chairman should double as the Sheriff. Subject to reelection every 4 years. That way he is accountable to his constituents. As Sheriff, he should be in charge of hiring Sheriff deputies to assist him. Holding cells should be built in each Local Government Headquarters.

And the funds that accrue to them, should be used to acquire drones and other security equipment, to secure their domain.