DEMOCRATIC LOCAL GOVERNMENT COUNCILS: AN OPTION OR AN INJUNCTION

Abstract

The relevance of the local government council does not lie in its descriptive essence as the third tier of government. The optimal political value is faceted on its capability to engender good democratic cultures and values, effective participation in the process of development at the grassroots with the possibility of filtering up to the national level. Thus local government is seen as both a nursery for democracy and a place for grooming national leaders. The basic precept underlying local government administration is that inhabitants of a given area have the right and responsibility to make decisions on those issues that affect them most directly and on which they can make decisions. It throws up the concept of democratic governance, self-government and administration closest to the people. In spite of the pronouncements of the appellate courts in Nigeria, the provisions of international legal instruments and the Nigerian constitution on compulsory democratisation of the local government affairs, the few states who comply with these legal injunctions do so reluctantly while most governors see them as limitations to their access to the public vault. This paper highlights the golden advantages of the promotion of democratic and autonomous local government institutions and the invaluable contribution it can make to national development. The paper strengthens its position by presenting the existing international, regional and domestic legal frameworks that prescribe democratically driven local government councils as basis for legitimacy, not as an option but as an injunction.