8th August, 2012
Chairman of the Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Local Government Administration and Chieftaincy Affairs, Moshood Oshun, in this interview, maintains that erring chairmen of councils in Lagos would be sanctioned in the Committee’s yet to be released report
How has it been as the Chairman, House Committee on Local Government Administration and Chieftaincy Affairs?
It’s been an eye-opener for me, it’s been wonderful and I would call it a learning course for me because as the chairman, the first thing I did with other members of the committee was to go round all the 20 local government councils and the 37 local council development areas which is like touring the whole of Lagos. In the course of doing your job too, you get to learn so many other things, know places and meet people. It’s been a wonderful experience.
The visit seems to have changed the perception of some people to local government administration in Lagos State …?
Lagos Assembly, as we all agree, is one of the best and most vibrant House of Assembly in Nigeria today, and that shows in the constitution of the committee. That committee, as you see, comprises lawmakers with strong intellectual capacity who have gone all the way to do their best to ensure that local governments work well. Secondly, the motive of the visit was to see what the local government chairmen and their staff were doing the right thing and commend them for doing it right, see where there are shortcomings and correct them. This was exactly what we did.
I am happy to tell you that in all the local government areas we went to, we were able to effect one or two changes. Like you have observed, in Ikorodu Local Government Area, the structures in the secretariat have been renovated and they now look beautiful and this is as a result of the visit. It did not happen in this place alone, but in all the 57 councils and LCDAs. The beauty of democracy is to see that where you are doing well, you are praised and where you are erring, you are criticised and made to know you can do better. I am proud to say that the feedback we got was that it was a wonderful visitation and they can’t wait for us to come back on another visit because like some of the chairmen told me, they have improved so much that when we visit them again, we would be impressed. I have also told them that no matter what they have done, we would still find one problem since we want the best for Lagos State.
We will continue to work with the council chairmen just to ensure that residents of Lagos are the best for it.
During the visit, we thought some council chairmen would be sanctioned, but we have not seen anything like that…
The report of the committee’s visit will be ready in the next few days and would be presented before the House. Our recommendations would be presented for some things to be done. On the issue of sanction, we have corrected some of them and told them what to do for the smooth running of the councils and I believe they have effected the corrections. We would only sanction those that we asked to do some things and they refused. If we observe something you are not doing right and we tell you and you do it, there would be no need for sanction. We had first-hand information of all that we needed to know instead of sitting down only to get information from outside. We are working and I can assure you that if anyone needs to be sanctioned, he would be sanctioned.
Some of the chairmen complained about scarcity of funds, what is the committee doing about this?
The issue of fund can be divided into two. The first aspect is the fact that the sharing formula of the Federal Government is not right and the House is working towards ensuring that this is changed. If the Federal Government wants to share money to states, it goes to the 36 states, and for local governments, it should give to the 774 local governments instead of giving to the 36 states which would now share to their various councils.
Also, we need to work within the purview of the constitution while trying to be of assistance, but on the sharing formula, we are doing our best and luckily for us, there is constitution amendment going on right now and I’m sure it is one of our positions from Lagos State.
The controversy surrounding the 37 LCDAs have continued to linger. What is your view about this considering their strides so far?
There’s nothing illegal about their creation. In the first place, if you consider the population of Lagos State , you would realise that the state deserves more than 57 council areas. In Nigeria, we have some states with less population but with more local government areas. When you go back to the constitution, it gives powers to the state Houses of Assembly to work on the creation of local governments and send the outcome to the National Assembly for ratification. We have done our bit and we have been waiting for the House of Representatives to do its bit.
Why is it taking so long for the National Assembly to do this?
I don’t know. Maybe the House of Representatives can answer that. We are working with them and we hope they would do their job on it, but we have done ours and there’s nothing illegal about it.
There’s this problem of joint accounts for states and local governments. Don’t you think it is better to deal with the local governments directly rather than what currently obtains?
It actually depends on the angle from which we are looking at it. But for me, I feel that a true federalism is about stronger states and weaker centre. In Nigeria , the reverse is the case. Ordinarily, all these are issues that should not even crop up. If we had stronger states, each of them can take care of its own. There are so many things the Federal Government should not concern itself with at all, but leave to the states. We have been talking about state police for several years now. There are also things that should be removed from the exclusive list. Really, it is unfortunate that the Federal Government could be delving into areas that could effectively be handled by the state governments.
Let’s practise democracy the way it should be practised; let’s handle true federalism the way it should be and other things would fall in place automatically.
What message do you have local government chairmen in Lagos?
They just need to be accountable and make sure they represent the people that voted them in. The truth is that Nigerians don’t ask for much but the basic necessities of life. As long as this is provided, I can assure you we would have the best country in the world. The councillors should not be far from their wards. The chairmen should hold interactive sections with their people and know what they want. It is a synergy, we must work together, but the most important is that you must ensure your people are well represented.