PROBLEMS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE IN NIGERIA
According to the world bank the African economic and political problem are rooted in the crisis of governance and the concept of governance has been widely if not exclusively associated with the politics of development in the post-colonial world. According to Pierre De Senarclen, it reflects the idea that national governments do not have monopoly of legitimate power; he further argues that there are other institutions and actors that contribute to maintaining order and participate in economic and social regulation.
As noted by de Alcantara C.H, the concept has been employed as a synonym the efficient management of a broad range of organizations and activities from modern cooperation to ocean depths. It involves building consensus or obtaining consent or acquiescent necessary to carry out a program in an area where many different interests are at play. The concept has been found useful in dealing with problems that require joint action in areas where the state does not or cannot play leading role. These areas are to be found from the most local to super-national.
The commission on governance defines the concept as the subtotal of various ways in which individuals and institutions, public or private manage their own affairs .It affirms that this is a continuous process through which diverse or conflicting interest can be brought together in order to find cooperative solutions e.g. cooperation between neighbors installing or maintaining a water supply system.
The idea of governance stems from the rejection that stimulates dependence. According to Gary Stoker, governance involve shifting of responsibility from government to private or local providers, he warned that this divorce between the normative codes used to explain and justify government and the reality of decision making in the system creates tension.
One point become relevant, that the structures linking the public and private sectors are capable of mastering responsibilities and blurring boundaries thereby creating serious problems of understanding and influencing the government by the citizens.
The Stepping Back of Government:
It is not only in the area of infrastructural provisions but also in the area of social regulation. Within our local government area, there are a range of voluntary groups, non-profits, NGO, community enterprise, coopreations and community-based organizations.
Among these groups specific mention is relevant to town unions. These unions exist in all most all rural and local areas, they engage in lot of developmental efforts. Cases abound where most of these community-based organizations make provisions for pipe-borne water, electricity, building and maintenance of roads, provision of rural health centers. These are infrastructures, which the local government should ordinarily provide .The major implication of these activities by ordinary people is some little effects it has on individual and collective performance on the workfroce. Ordinarily some departments of the local government suppose to be in charge of these activities, workers in such departments are made lazier by shifting their responsibility to private workers.
Secondly some private providers find ways of penetrating the local government system and constitute big reference point in making sure that their feelings are not injured, the principal decision makers in the local government often consult them to the extent of mortgaging objectivity and established policy guidelines.
This make the local government tenders board become castrated advertisers for the sake of it and rubber stamp contracts to the benefactor who in most cases collect money and abandon the contracts. As a result of this performance becomes affected, having taken over some traditional task of the local governmwent, the system becomes helpless.
Social Regulation: this is another dimension worth of examination, occasioned by the dilemma of governance is. Almost all town unions have what we call vigilante groups. The local government chairman is the chief security officer of the local government. it is therefore part of the irresponsibility of the local government to protect life and property of the people living and transacting business within the local government area of authority. In doing this the local government is supposed to rely on the police force in its area.
But in the present day Nigerian local government setting, the society has witnessed the failure of the police force; communities today rely on these vigilante groups. These groups are under the control of town unions and keep awake day and night to ensure that people transact their business and keep their eyes closed while asleep. Most of the time they depend on gratification and not salaries.
Their activities have rendered the job of the police almost irrelevant. This is because the Nigerian society had lost confidence in the police force since it is difficult to find an honest policeman in Nigeria. The claim might look exaggerated but it is true. Howerevr, today, the new civilian administration is doing something about this ugly development.
Another point worth examining is the taking away of responsibility, which has further weakened the performance of the police force in the local government, who are faced with fewer challenges. Their inability to combat crime is often blamed on the lack of willingness on the part of the citizens to supply them with information and inadequate provision for their effective performance as well as of poor salary.
Blurring Responsibility : Creates some kind of ambiguity and uncertainty in the minds of policy makers and the public about who is responsible for particular responsibility to private providers.
Another factor is the general trend towards replacing values of citizenship, with those of consumerism which is associated with the move towards governance, brings with it a further weakening of legitimacy for institutions and processes .it then becomes difficult for citizens to know where to channel blame or seek redress in the event of poor services.
In conclusion, local government may stand to loose status and position in the face of competition from new local providers.
My recommendation at this point is that local government and local providers should blend their resources for the benefit of all, because government and governance has their respective pros and cons .
As stoker stated, actors and institutions could gain a capacity to act by blending their resources, skill and purposes into a long-term coalition on a regime. If they succeed they preempt the leadership role in their country and establish for themselves a near decision-making monopoly over the cutting edge choices facing their locality.
The establishment of a viable regime is the ultimate act of power in the content of an emerging system of governance.
ALFRED FRIDAY
fshyinng@yahoo.com
Administrator
