I know of at least one local government chairman who had two abodes. One was in his local government area. The other was in Lagos. Their preferred abode? Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre. They were unnerved by their fidelity to the constitution that required them to operate as full-time employees of the tax payer. They spent at least 29 days in Lagos and one day in their offices. Sometimes, they never visited their LGAs in three months.
Their reason? They were only chairmen in name and salaries, and occasional largesse from their benefactors. Their boss, the governor, had essentially trumped their roles. They bowed to the usurper. They were thankful to their abuser who enabled them to earn a living while pursuing their businesses in Lagos. A cynical tryst.
The Supreme Court verdict seems to have put paid to all that. Seems. The governors fought. They have quilted and yielded like constitutional creatures to the tip court in the land. They yielded but they are not bowed. The law, as Thoreau said, “never made anyone a whit more just.” The law may be right, but man must execute it.
This is a triumph for Attorney General Lateef Fagbemi, and a quiet tremor of joy to grassroots politicians and, especially, to the Tinubu administration. We must accept it also as a victory for fiscal federalism. The president has been one of the rooftop cheerleaders of the idea, and for him to do it by following the law is a kudos to his constitutional integrity. It was a decision he too has taken against his own past, having served as governor who controlled local government funds. It is a rectitude of reversal. It is a courage of self-recrimination. He saw his dirt and cleaned it in public. It is understandable that governors did not want their powers to “go gentle into that good night,” to adapt Dylan Thomas’ poem. They “raged against the dying” of their powers.
Yet we must admit that this was an act that makes the Supreme Court an activist chamber. Our federalism anoints two tiers: the federal and states. This naturally means money should go to both. If the law was made to save the money, it means the court in following the money has undermined the power of the state governors. It implied we have two political tiers but three financial tiers. What this means is that the court has made a law by interpreting it. No one can question its power to do so. Courts make laws and they are called precedents. Most who read this see the politics and not the law. But what is the use of the law when it creates injustice? That is the crux of Fagbemi’s point. The governors can only appeal to God.
But there is a seeming naivety in the jubilation over the guillotine of the governors in this matter. Yes, the allocation will go direct to the chairmen. But who puts the chairmen on the throne? Of course, the governors. The governors control the electoral process. The governors nod who heads their local INEC. The governors can outspend most contenders for local government offices during elections. So, while fiscal federalism triumphs, political localism will contend. The governors may now put their men in offices and direct them on how to spend their money. If an LG chair resists, he may fight the local bear at his own peril. Money, it seems, answers all things. This will engender constitutional tension and stir democratic impulses.
The other angle is to see it as a case where local government chairs run to the presidency for cover. The president, where his interest beckons, may “mobilise” the LGs against their governors. I predict that if the governors pick most of the chairs, we may have the governors acting like British system called “indirect rule.” I think the phrase was wrongly used by historians as my former teacher, the late Prof. Tunji Oloruntimehin, asserted. A rule is a rule. We cannot say the managing director is ruling his finance department indirectly because he has a financial manager. So, governors will use stealth and tact to maintain the status quo. The idea of caretakers was an impunity of governors who did not want to pretend to be dictators. One of such was Pitobi who did not pretend to be a democrat when he governed Anambra State. He has kept mum so far on this subject. His lack of garrulity here is refreshing.
Whatever happens going forward, two things are clear. One, this is a plus for restructuring. Two, we are in an uncharted territory. Will the politics of federalism yield to the financing of it? That is the question. It is a challenge to the integrity of the governors and the resilience of grassroots politics.
Apostles of federalism have asserted that the biggest part of a nation should not be bigger than the smallest part of it. This is a theory that federalism has not fulfilled in any nation. Even in the United States, the award of electoral votes sanctifies inequality. The concept of federalism often wrestles with the concept of equality. In his America, Alexis de Tocqueville, praised the United States for what he called the “equality of condition.” This implies the absence of equality in class and institutions. But it means equality is an aspiration, not a fact. The system has a potential for rising over its tyrannical structure. Indeed, the U.S. was later to abolish slavery, enthrone gender rights and abolish Jim Crow laws about blacks. But, in fact, the injustices remain, in spite of the legal triumphs. Law only works where good people win. As Edmund Burke, the great conservative, asserted, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” It is about people, not the law. After all, the American constitution said all men were created equal, and two hundred years later, it is still a contention.
What the governors know and the constitution cannot wipe out is what Harvard Professor Joseph Nye calls soft power. It is often more powerful than hard power, which is the law. The battle in Kano and Edo states between governors and monarchs is the wrestle between soft and hard power. While in the local government situation, the governors may exercise soft power, in the Kano and Edo issues, the soft power lies in the hands of the kings. we cannot rule out “rogue” LG men who governors will tag upstarts. I suspect that if such LG chairmen run to the presidency for help, the president will be in a position to wield both soft and hard powers, and a strong and cunning president will browbeat any gubernatorial sleight of hand by making them slight of hand. That is why I say we are in uncharted waters, and both Fagbemi (SAN) and the president know this. As the Chinese says, we are in interesting times.
