It was going to meet headwinds. Although it is a practical idea, governors, almost without exception, have acted as though it is an idealistic proposition.

Since the local government bill became law asserting their independence in the fiscal sense, the governors have been the headache of implementation. This is official impunity, and the chairmen of the local governments across the country have not exercised the courage to take their own rights.

Hence the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), Odunayo Ategbero, has asked that the chairmen should make bold to take their own. He directed them to open accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

“We are happy with the president, and I’m proud of the fact that we have not gotten to where we want to go, but we are making steady progress,” Ategbero said.

But that note of joy does little to make the local government chairmen exhale. It is a profound irony that the chairmen are hamstrung. It shows how tradition and fear can stand between a democratic society and tyranny.

The governors have expressed disdain for the law from the early beginning. None of them has hailed it, and yet the governors have received the increase of their allocation under the Tinubu administration with gratitude.

Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, was the first to kick against it. The other governor to raise his voice, trying to deploy administrative reasons rather than constitutional ideas, was Anambra State governor Chukwuma Soludo.

Since the law was enacted, the governors have showed a false devotion to the local government concept, and they organised elections. They adhered to the law, but with half-hearted and self-serving zeal. Since the mechanics and law of the elections often lie in their control, the governors picked virtually all the chairmen. Their successes in the polls were self-fulfilling prophecies. They contested the election as a charade of a serious affair, and they won only as a technicality.

A lot of money belongs to the local governments as the window on the grassroots. The idea of the money is to address critical issues that governors, in their high perches, may not feel as much as those who live and work there. It is a stroke for intimacy.

If you look at the grassroots level, abject poverty is tremendous, but with this new arrangement, we are sure that we will erase and stamp out poverty at the grassroots level,” Ategbero said.

Issues that are dear to the grassroots will be served if the money goes to the 774 local government chairmen. They will address health, education, environment and security. They have the best intelligence of the fate and sufferings as well as the yearnings of the vast majority of the people, especially in the rural areas.

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), has said it made no sense in a federal system for the government to channel the local government funds to state governors.

It is also significant that this very consequential law has failed to attract the zeal and agitation of the civil rights organisations. Labour seems to be waking up on the wrong side of the bed in this matter as the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, has asserted recently.

“We have gotten the autonomy now,” said Ajaero, “I want to plead with the Federal Government not to play politics with the autonomy we have gotten. The release of funds to local governments should not be at the whims and caprices of government.” But he is directing the resentment in the wrong direction.

It is not the Federal Government’s fault. It wants to send the money. The chairmen must open their accounts first. (The Nation Editorial)