State-Local Government Fiscal Relations : Implications for Local Government System in Nigeria

Abstract

Since the inception of the system of local government in Nigeria, there had been persistent clamour for the autonomy of the local government as the third tier of governance in the federation. It is interesting to note that even the federal government has in recent times joined in championing the course of local government autonomy. In order to strengthen the autonomy and philosophy of government at the local level, The Federal government guaranteed the statutory nature of local government by embodying it in the 1979 constitution. Even the military administration of General Ibahim babangida from 1986 took bold steps to strengthen the autonomy of local government. By January 1988, good measures of autonomy came the way local government with the scrapping of the state ministries of local government throughout the country thus removing the political control and bureaucratic red-tapism perpetuated by these state ministries. It has been stated earlier in the paper that the Act which established the State Joint Local Government Account (SJLGA) was passed in 1981 by the National Assembly but the eventual domestication and implementation of the provisions of the Act by the states in the federation only took effect in the early years of the Fourth Republic when State House of Assembly passed the SJLGA laws to give effects to that constitutional provisions. The paper explored these issues.