There were further efforts on the part of the state government to reform the local government system after the civil war, which ended in 1970. The main objectives of these reforms and their structural patterns were similar in the eastern and western states but different in the Northern states. But in essence the nature of local government reorganizations during the first half of the 1970’s reflected greatly the tendency of military administration” in the country towards centralization of state power. Thus, the “development in the eastern and western state, respectively, were not aimed at creating autonomous and highly democratized local government systems, they were rather designed to facilitate the extension of the powers and development efforts of the governments of the local communities. To this effect, local government administration in the south eastern and Midwestern states was called “development administration”. According to the architects of this reform, development was defined as “comprehensive changes of transformation in cultural, educational, economic, social and political fields and administration was perceived as “the harnessing and management of resources in men and material to meet or bring about these aspirations
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of communities in the context of the overall development of the state (Oyedirna, Gloyega, 1979, p 176).
In the south-eastern state, development administration comprised two levels of local administration – the area development committee and urban or country development council. An area development committee served a number of villages for the purpose of co-ordinating their efforts in project development. Also, in the mid-western state, there were two levels of local administration – development councils and development committee. Even though the reforms were aimed at socio-economic development at the grassroots; they could not promote the development of participatory democracy at the local level. In all the states all the members of development council, area and development committee were appointed by military Governors. Moreover, the resident, divisional officers, or development officers represented the state governments in the local government.
A variant of the development administration approach to local administration was the divisional administration which was adopted in the East central state. This consisted of a two-tier system of local administration. The upper level was known as the divisional council while the lower tier was the community council. The divisional council never really took off and their powers were exercised by resident or divisional officers.
In the Western states, the reforms that were introduced in local administration were patterned after the American model council manager system. Here again, the emphasis were on viability and efficiency and not on the democratization of the local government system. The reform involved the reconstitution of the existing local government units into single-tier local government councils. However, membership of councils were based not on elective representation but on appointment by the military governor. Other limiting factors are those from the District officers and the ministry of local government. The former acted as adviser to the councils and monitored their activities on behalf of the state government. The later approved the budget of local government councils before they could operate them and disburse funds for programme development.
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In the Northern states, the local government reforms of the early 1970s were aimed at increasing the level of popular representation and reducing the power and influence of traditional rulers in local administration. The creation of six more states in the former Northern Region created a favourable climate for achieving some of these objectives. The creations of more states resulted in the reconstitution of existing emirate councils into more local administration units. In Kano State, for example, the existing four emirate councils were split into eighth local administrative areas. Also, in North central states, six local authorities were created out of the former two emirate councils of Zaria and Katsina. These changes involved substantial reduction in the influence of the traditional rulers. The reforms also involved the abolition of the chief-in-council type of council in favour of the chief-and-council type, (which implies that the emir or chief no longer has the right to veto decisions reached by majority of the council members). It proposed that the two-thirds of the total council membership would be elected by popular votes. Other members of the emirate could comprise the chief or emir as chairman, a small number of traditional rulers and some ex-officio or nominated members. It may be pertinent to note that the implementation of the elective aspect of the reform was delayed because of the state of emergency in the country. In oder to further weaken the power of the traditional rulers, the northern state governments took steps to harmonize their methods of selection and appointments and sought for input from their communities before making such appointments.
4.0 Conclusion
From the discussion so far, it is quite clear that different regions practiced different system of local government system. While the reform system were similar in Eastern and Western Nigeria, it was quite different in the Northern Nigeria while the reforms were aimed at creating autonomous and highly democratized local government system in order to facilitate the extension of the powers and development efforts at the government at the local communities.
The reforms in the Northern states were however aimed at increasing the level of popular representative and reducing the power and influence of traditional rulers in local administration
86 5.0 Summary
It is interesting to note that certain characteristics were common to all those traditional political institutions above which include fragmentation of local government units; inadequate staffing; poor finance; complete lose of requisite autonomy and emphasis on “administration” rather than “government”. Local government in this area was seen as the extension of the state government. Even though the reforms were aimed at socio-economic development of the grassroots level, they could not promote the development of participatory democracy at the local level. In fact, these various reforms did not improve local government in Nigeria. The system the reforms produced were very unviable, unresponsive and unproductive.