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Local government autonomy and development of localities in Nigeria: issues, problems and suggestions
Imhanlahimi J.
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The topical issue of local government (LG) autonomy in Nigeria in relation to the development of the localities, the raison d’etre of LGs, has been examined in this paper. Proceeding from theoretical framework and conceptualizations for clearer understanding, the paper discusses some dominant autonomy issues. These include representative LGs, the size of LGs, revenue, and personnel. The paper found that inadequate handling of virtually all the above issues has posed some challenges for LGs’ developmental efforts in the localities. Inadequate autonomy has been found to be the independent variable in the challenges. Other challenges include inadequate finances, weak intergovernmental relations, fledging democracy and grand corruption. These must be adequately tackled for LGs to make more positive impact in the localities. Some pertinent recommendations are as follows. LGs need adequate autonomy, hard work rather than verbal institutionalization, democratic consolidation, reduced corruption, increased discipline and application of the rule of law.
Religion, religiosity and adolescent risky sexual health behaviour in Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria
Wusu O.
The rate of premarital sexual intercourse among adolescents in Nigeria is alarming, despite its prohibition by several religious groups. This contradiction prompted the question: what is the prevailing relationship between religion, religiosity, and adolescents’ sexual behaviour in the country? This relationship was examined through survey data collected between December 2009 and February 2010 in the Lagos metropolis. A multistage sampling procedure was adopted in selecting 1026 adolescents between 12 and 19 years of age in the metropolis 2 and Logistic regressions techniques were employed in data analysis. Results reveal that religious affiliation is significantly related to only casual sexual relationships among boys at the level of 2 analysis (p < 0.05) but it is not significantly related to any of the indicators of risky sexual behaviour at multivariate level of analysis. Also, religiosity is significantly related (p < 0.05) to multiple sexual partnerships at both levels of analysis among females. The study concludes that religious affiliation is not likely to play any significant role in combating adolescents’ risky sexual behaviour but religiosity could be fairly effective in this battle among females in the study setting. Keywords: religion, religiosity, adolescents, sexual health behaviour, Lagos, Nigeria
Federal government financing of grassroots decay in Nigeria: the case of Edo state
Ebohon S.
In this research article, an attempt is made to locate the failure of local government councils to construct rural
development poles in the context of patrimonial redistributive politics that greeted the emergence of the Nigerian petrostate. The failure of the third tier to transit into a local pole of development, controverts the assumed linkage between grassroots development and creation of more local government councils. Empirical evidence from Edo state has
demonstrated ‘reverse resource flow’ in favour of urban and semi-urban locales. In this process, enhanced revenue flow
through federal statutory allocation is ‘reverse transfer’ to the centres through the mechanisms of urban extractive ratio.
The de-poling so engendered creates more decay than existed pre-fragmentation. By the character logic and organization of these new local governments (political post); they mediate the crisis of rural-urban exploitation and rural-locale depoling, in a self-reproduction project typical of patron-client politics. In this context, it is assumed that phenomenal growth in statutory and allied revenues accruing to rural locales has not produced the desired development, but undesired decay.
Key Words: Nigeria – Federal financing, Edo State, public administration, political science, Nigeria, University of Benin
