Sesugh Akume argues how Nigeria’s broken local governments can be fixed
Across the world, including in Africa, local governments raise their own revenues, recruit their own staff, and deliver services at a scale that would embarrass many national governments. One of the busiest and most efficient shipping hubs on earth — from which we crafted the expression “Direct Belgium” — ultimately has two city governments as its sole shareholders. They function because their legal architecture permits it. Authority and responsibility are aligned.
In Nigeria, a local government cannot independently purchase chalk for a classroom or a syringe for a clinic without a state agency acting on its behalf. Not because the Constitution requires it. Not because the courts endorse it. But because decades of accumulated federal and state law have stripped the third tier of the operational tools it needs to function. What remains is a structure that absorbs blame without wielding power. This is institutionalised infantilisation.
The consequences are measurable. The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) reports ₦263 billion in unaccessed funds as of 2025, with 34 states yet to draw down allocations. Meanwhile, 18 million Nigerian children remain out of school — UBEC’s own most recently published comprehensive estimate. Funds sit idle. Children wait.
For perspective, Montgomery County in the United States — not even among the top ten school districts nationally — spends roughly $3 billion (about ₦4 trillion) annually on education. In a globalised world, Nigerian children are expected to compete by the same metrics. Architecture determines outcomes.
On 13 October 2025, the Federal High Court in Abuja clarified the constitutional position in Sesugh Akume v UBEC and Attorney-General of the Federation. Justice Emeka Nwite declared local governments autonomous constitutional entities, not administrative extensions of state governments. Provisions of the UBE Act subordinating them to State Universal Basic Education Boards were struck down. LGs were authorised to remit matching grants directly to UBEC and access federal funds without state intermediation. States are not constitutional gatekeepers to funds allocated to local governments.
One would have assumed alignment. Instead, UBEC has opposed the judgment, and all 37 SUBEBs are seeking to appeal. A federal agency mandated to fund basic education is resisting a ruling that enables funds to reach schools directly. UBEC itself acknowledged a shortage of 19,400 primary-school teachers, sixteen states failing to recruit in five years, and a deficit of 43,456 classrooms. Its Executive Secretary, Aisha Garba, described Nigeria as “facing an education crisis of great magnitude.” Let that sink in.
Why resist a ruling that removes bottlenecks while lamenting crisis? Because what is being defended is not educational efficiency but a revenue-control architecture. Federal statutes create centralised channels; state governments operate them; federal agencies defend them; and when challenged, the system closes ranks. The states are visible actors, but the enabling framework is federal. The alibi is subnational obstruction; the design is national. That is structural collusion. That is a cartel.
The distortion extends beyond education. The National Health Act 2016 centralises operational control of primary healthcare under state structures. A local government cannot independently procure basic supplies for clinics within its jurisdiction without navigating state bureaucracy. Responsibility is constitutionally local; authority is operationally withheld. Most Nigerians do not know this. Many would struggle to believe it even if told.
The constitutional logic is straightforward. Local governments are a recognised third tier with defined mandates and a share of federation revenues. Basic education and primary healthcare sit squarely within that mandate. Financial flows should match that design. Instead, state governments — empowered by federal law and sustained by federal inaction — intercept resources meant for communities and control institutions they are not constitutionally charged to run. Local governments do not even employ their own staff; council workers are state employees posted there. Such an arrangement would be inconceivable between federal and state tiers. It persists because it serves entrenched interests across tiers.
The pattern is not new. For decades, the absence of a bridge across the River Katsina-Ala at Buruku was blamed on boat operators who supposedly resisted it. Federal records listed the bridge as constructed in 2009, tolled, and revenue-generating. It reappeared repeatedly in national budgets — sometimes for rehabilitation, sometimes for fresh construction, once for both simultaneously. We initiated FOI requests. We litigated. We persisted through resistance and procedural setbacks. The fiction collapsed. Today, the bridge is under construction. The boat operators were not the obstacle; they were the alibi. Systems that appear immovable can be made to yield when their contradictions are exposed.
Consider what becomes possible when these barriers fall. Logo Local Government — my own — is larger than Seychelles, Malta, and Barbados — each roughly a third its size — yet these sovereign states organise themselves, raise revenues, and achieve strong human development outcomes because authority and resources are aligned. There is no logical reason why Logo, or any Nigerian local government, cannot orient itself toward genuine self-sufficiency. The barrier is not geography or capacity. It is law — and the political arrangements that law currently enables. Grants should be supplementary, not lifelines.
The next step is financial plumbing. Local governments cannot access UBEC funds directly without bank accounts. The Central Bank of Nigeria is statutory banker to all three tiers. A formal notice requesting account openings for local governments expired without response. Silence, too, sustains architecture.
If the current backlog of over ₦250 billion remains trapped within this structure, it will not remain static. Against a national budget exceeding ₦50 trillion, the accumulation could approach a trillion naira within a decade. The deficit would not simply be financial. It would be constitutional.
The court has supplied the key after six years of litigation we initiated and sustained. Appeals are underway. Structural distortions do not correct themselves; they are corrected by organised, sustained pressure. Those who recognise the stakes need not remain observers; structural change demands coalition. If entrenched interests are coordinating to defend control, communities must coordinate to defend autonomy.
Nigeria must decide which federation it intends to be.
Persistence forces alignment between paper and reality.
Akume, a public policy analyst based in Abuja, can be reached at [email protected].
