STATE CONTROL OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN NIGERIA: AN ASSESSMENT OF MUHAMMADU BUHARI ADMINISTRATION

Abstract

Globally, local government is considered as a structure of government capable of aggregating and attending to peoples' needs timely and efficiently. In Nigeria, it is part of the tripod federalism; federal, state and local government. However, the performance of this important structure compared to her constitutional duties are not impressive. Thus, the study an assessment of state control of local government in Nigeria, using Muhammadu Buhari administration as case study became imperative. It adopted desk research method through the use of secondary data and vertical and horizontal decentralisation model to analyse the ideal state-local government relations. The study found out that despite many efforts of Buhari's administration to ensure autonomy of local government from the grip of state governors, the problem persist due to constitutional ambiguity on the role of local government, anti- democratic credentials and idiosyncrasy of state governors, lack fiscal autonomy and among others. The study recommends constitutional amendment and abolition of State –Local Government Joint Account, prosecution of state governors found guilty in the interference on local government allocation among other measures.