LOCAL GOVERNMENT AS A THIRD TIER OF GOVERNMENT

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AS A THIRD TIER OF GOVERNMENT

According to the United Nations, a Local government is "a political sub-division of a nation or country which is constituted by law and has substantial control of local affairs including the power imposes taxes or to extract labour for proscribed purposes. The governing body of such an entity is elected or otherwise locally selected.

From the above definition, it can be deduced that a local government has a number of distinguished attributes some of these attributes are:

i.                    Is a subordinate unit or level at government?

ii.                  It has legal and constitutional power to carry out certain legislative, administrative and semi judiciary functions.

iii.                It has powers to make policies prepare budgets and some measure of control overstaff.

iv.               It has a governing body or council whose membership is either elected or selected.

v.                 It exercise authority over a given geographical area and population.

vi.               It has a legal personality.

The legal framework of local government as the third tier of government in Nigeria neither was nor established until 1976 nationwide reform. Before, local government were regarded and treated as the babies of regional and states. It was therefore the 1976 reform, which for the first time accorded local government the state of the third level of government in Nigeria. The reform document described the local government as the "Government at the local level exercised through representative council, establish by law to exercise specific powers within defined area".

The 1970 constitution formally and constitutionally recognized local government as the third tier for government when it state that "he system of local government by democratically elected local government council is under this constitution guaranteed and according the government Of every state shall ensure their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils".

Subsequent reforms, reorganizations and functions since 1979 have tried to accept and treat the local government institutions as third level of government with specific legal roles and responsibilities and which comes after the federal and state governments in order of constitutional importance.