While newspaper columnists and editorials have attempted to debate the constitutionality of LCDAs, documenting the legal battles that trail its creation while it lasted, not much has been seen from scholars in the sense of empirical evaluation of these phenomenon that has come to stick to us in local governance discourse in Nigeria.
So, we while wait for the constituent listing by the national assembly in the constitution, do we simply seat and observe these important institutions without any empirical evaluation vis a vis their purported mandates.
Whatever function the LCDAs are expected to perform is not different from the constitutional role assigned to local government. Unfortunately, the state governments have destroyed this important concept for grassroots development. The Nigerian constitution guarantees the application of democratic principles in the local the government but the whole issue has been politicized against the intendment of the drafters of the constitution. If the LCDAs are allowed to operate as governmental structures at the grassroots level, thewy are supposed to be agents of rapid development. Unfortunately, because the officials are mostly appointees of the government in power, they are not independent. They do according to the wishes of the man in government. You will discover that a common phenomenon in Nigeria now is undemocratic composition of the government at this level.
Dr Fagbadebo,
Thank you for your response.
I agree with you sir that there are issues with the local government systems in Nigeria. But my point is that that is the more reason why we as researchers need to even look closer at the system because without a clear understanding of what is happening as against what we assume is happening we may not be able to fashion out solutions to the problem.
My point is, research driven policy solutions are needed
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