Suchergebnisse

Local government administration in Nigeria is as old as history and its dated back pre-colonial era. It had been part of system of government among ethnic groups in Nigeria particularly the Yoruba in the West, Hausa/Fulani in the North and the Igbo in the East. Each ethnic group operating it as it suits their cultural value. Under colonial administration, it was known as indirect rule system. It was an attempt to govern the people through their chief. At independence and thereafter, the system has since been restructured and reorganized depending on the regime and the nature of government in power. These changes have made it to pass through series of uncertainties and with peculiar characteristics. The paper, therefore, examines the historical development of local government in Nigerian state. The research methodology is carried out through the use of secondary data. However, the paper founds out that, the current state of Local Government in Nigeria is characterised by unbridled interference of the State Government and therefore recommends that, there is need to review the Constitution to make Local Government autonomous especially on the issues of fiscal power, functions and responsibilities.

This paper deals with the discourse on evolution of Nigerian state and the challenges it poses for actualisation of democratic governance in the polity. The continued crises in the polity and corrupt practices that characterizes Nigerian state overtime reveals a diminishing state of accountability and ethical values which has its foundation in emergence of the Nigerian state. Since the purpose of amalgamation was to protect the British economic interest and to facilitate exploitation of the nation's resources, the Nigerian politician who took over power from the British continued from where they stopped, thereby making the state an instrument to perpetuate corrupt practices of all sorts. The implication of this is the disappearance of democratic values, political decadence and retarded development. Methodologically, the paper adopted a qualitative research technique of data collection through the content analysis of empirical studies conducted by scholars who have made outstanding contributions on the practice of governance within and outside Nigerian political landscape. Against this analytical background, the study analyses the issue of governance vis-a-vis avoidable crises foisted on the polity by the politicians since the commencement of the independence in 1960 and finds out that, the present governance crises in Nigeria had its root in colonialism. The study therefore calls for a resolution among the federating units which must entail a renegotiation of the polity along democratic principles and a total reform of the anti-corruption agencies for effective performance.