Dear President Tinubu, LG Autonomy Not a Suggestion, It’s Shortcut to Ending Poverty

Almost a year ago, the Supreme Court, in an unusually assertive moment of clarity, ruled that Nigeria’s 774 Local Government Areas should receive their allocations directly no detours through state governors, no creative accounting, no godfather bottlenecks.

For a nation so tragically allergic to functional federalism, it was a rare breath of constitutional oxygen.

But what has happened since July 11, 2024? Nothing. Or, rather, a tragicomic sequence of dodges, delays, and denials. The judgment remains largely unimplemented. Governors are still sitting on the money like it’s their personal inheritance.

The Central Bank now demands two years of audited accounts from LGAs, as if a drowning man must show tax clearance before getting a lifejacket. And a three-month moratorium granted to state governments last year seems to have morphed into an indefinite sabbatical from reform.

Let’s be clear: this is not a technical issue it’s political sabotage.

President Tinubu, this one is on your table now. Unfiltered Reporting and other bold voices have shouted until hoarse that local government autonomy is not just constitutional; it’s common sense. It is the fastest route to aggressivating poverty (yes, we made up the word because Nigeria needs new vocabulary for its peculiar failures). When money flows straight to the grassroots, communities breathe, boreholes appear, schools reopen, and health centres stop being ghost towns.

Right now, local government is local in name only. Most LGAs in Nigeria are run by caretaker committees appointed by governors, funded by governors, and loyal only to the governors. It’s like running a democracy with training wheels welded to the bike and the state chief executives hold the spanner.

Yes, some have argued that the Constitution isn’t clear on full autonomy. That’s a lazy escape route. The Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution, and until it is amended, that interpretation is binding. We can’t cherry-pick which court orders to obey based on political convenience.

Mr. President, if your administration is serious about tackling poverty, then let go of the states and reach the people. No amount of palliative handouts, economic roadshows, or international summits will work if the village chairman has to write a letter to a commissioner to fix a broken primary school toilet.

If your Renewed Hope agenda is to mean anything, then show us the courage to implement the judgment. Direct the Minister of Finance and the CBN to stop moving the goalpost. Tell the governors nicely or not that Nigeria is no longer a feudal experiment. The local government system must work.

Let the money flow. Let governance reach the ward level. Let democracy touch the soil.

That is the only way to plant real hope and maybe, just maybe, harvest a nation worth the anthems