Local Government Administration in Nigeria: Issues, Challenges and the Way Forward

Abstract

Local government as the third tier of government in Nigeria constitutes the most critical level of government at which the momentum to sustain national development can be attained. This level of government over the years has been accused of non-performance to the extent that some scholars and politicians have called for its scrap off as a tier of government in Nigeria. Against this back drop, the paper adopting qualitative research design in which data were largely derived from secondary sources found out that Local government administration in Nigeria has suffered a lot of deprivations in the hands of other levels of government. Such deprivations range from lack of financial and administrative autonomy, usurpation of some of its lucrative functions, absence of skilled manpower, non-remittance of 10% of state’s internally generated revenue, non-adherence to guidelines for creation of Local government areas, just to mention but a few. The paper therefore concluded that the abysmal performance of Local government in Nigeria is attributable to nonadherence to the guidelines on local government creation and usurpation of its powers and functions by the Federal and State governments and therefore recommended among others; the total restructuring of Local government for efficient and effective delivering of services that will bring about the needed rural development in Nigeria.