There are a lot of people in Nigeria who don’t like the National Assembly members because they get a bogus budget every year, which is believed to be too expensive for the country.
After receiving budget proposals from ministries and parastatals, the members of the National Assembly will always mark them up with their huge budget proposals, with little or no challenge from anyone, even the President and his executive arm.
On some occasions, when the President tried to disagree with them, the result was that the appropriation bill was not signed for a long time. This was not good for the President and his team.
However, the 9th National Assembly has made a lot of progress in amending the constitution, especially on important issues like financial autonomy for local government areas and the legislative and judicial arms of government at both the state and national levels.
These changes are very important to the people of Nigeria.
These amendments will help provide the required checks and balances in governance.
The State and Local Government Joint Account (SLGJA) was a part of the 1979 constitution. It was later abolished by President Babangida in 1989.
However, with the return to democracy, it was reintroduced in the 1999 constitution.
Since then, local government councils have not been able to do as much for the people in their communities because state governors now control all of the money that goes to them.
Fortunately, the current national assembly has successfully amended section 162 of the 1999 constitution to grant local government areas administrative and financial autonomy as the third tier of government. This will guarantee their democratic existence and tenure.
The question now is how to turn this great achievement by the 9th National Assembly into the proper use of local government funds and visible development of the rural areas, considering that the amendment has been successfully passed.
Besides, state governors should have minimal influence on how local government chairmen and councilors are elected. This way, we can make big progress in this area.
In addition, state electoral commissions should truly be independent, and this can only be determined by how the electoral commissioners are appointed.
With the progress made so far, the onus now lies with the local government administrators to put the available resources to adequate use.
Local government chairmen should be held accountable for the money allocated to them monthly.
They no longer have any reason to blame the state governors.
Any time we find out that elected officials have mismanaged local government funds, we should be ready to ask the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to help us prosecute them.
Finally, I want to use this medium to invite well-meaning Nigerians to make themselves available for political offices at the grassroots.
The era of appointing caretaker committees by the state governors is over. The local government now has guaranteed democratic existence and tenure.
Let us start by joining political parties at the grassroots level. As such, we can positively influence the decisions that are made on our behalf.
We can also contest for these positions and then put our management expertise to work by properly managing the available resources for the citizens.
According to Atul Gawande in Better: A Surgeon’s Note on Performance,
“We always hope for the easy fix: the one simple change that will erase a problem in a stroke. But few things in life work this way. Instead, success requires making a hundred small steps go right – one after the other, no slipups, no goofs, everyone pitching in.”
EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT