From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
At a critical roundtable focused on implementing the Zaria Declaration on Strengthening Local Governance and Empowering Traditional Institutions, key stakeholders have issued an urgent call for the National Assembly to take immediate legislative action on constituency projects.
They emphasised the pressing need to establish a robust legal framework to regulate constituency projects, ensure transparency, and promote sustainability. Without decisive laws, millions of naira risk being wasted on abandoned projects, deepening grassroots underdevelopment.
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Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Center (CISLAC), Awwal Musa Rafsanjani, expressed serious concerns about the current state of constituency projects, calling them unsustainable and unaccountable. He highlighted the absence of proper consultation with local governments and communities, leading to abandoned and misaligned projects. “Some members say they repair mosques or churches, others take people on pilgrimages, while some build roads where the community actually wants water on the basis of constituency projects,” Rafsanjani said.
He urged the National Assembly to insist on a legal framework that would bind members to consult with local governments so projects can be tracked, maintained, and continue benefiting communities after the members leave office. Rafsanjani noted that trillions of naira have been wasted on abandoned projects due to lack of prioritization, need assessment, and proper handover. He warned against personalizing public projects and called for synergy between constituency projects and local governments to enable public tracking of spending.
Gen. Isho Williams of Pan Africa Strategic and Policy Research Group provided historical context, tracing many challenges back to Nigeria’s 1966 military coup. He stressed the importance of true fiscal federalism as envisioned by Nigeria’s founding fathers, where communities benefit directly from their resources.
He criticised the 1999 constitution for centralizing power and resources at the federal level, causing struggles around resource control and funding for local governments.
Williams explained that in some models, like the United States, communities own their minerals and receive revenue directly, promoting accountability and reducing corruption.
He highlighted that funding flow from federal to state and then to local governments creates bottlenecks and corruption, undermining democracy at the grassroots.
Acting Director of Democracy and Governance at National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS),
Christopher Ngera, echoed concerns about the lack of accountability in local government finances. He noted that often local government budgets are rubber-stamped without proper legislative oversight. Ngera emphasised the need to balance local government financial autonomy with mechanisms for oversight to prevent abuse of resources.
He praised Rafsanjani’s call for a legal framework for constituency projects, stating that without legality and accountability, resources often end up in private homes or are misused. He urged for laws that formalize constituency projects and ensure transparency to avoid them becoming internal pockets for opportunistic spending.
Another participant added that abandoned constituency projects often stem from lack of maintenance plans and poor coordination with local governments. They recommended that any constituency project must be accompanied by a clear maintenance plan as a prerequisite. This approach would avoid the typical situation where local governments are expected to maintain projects they have no budget for.
Speaking on the essence of the Roundtable dialogue, Rafsanjani, explained that it’s aimed at implementing the recommendations of the Zaria Declaration to overhaul Nigeria’s fragmented local governance structures and rejuvenate traditional institutions.
Welcoming a diverse assembly of policymakers, traditional leaders, civil society collaborators, media representatives, and other stakeholders, Rafsanjani painted a stark picture of Nigeria’s deeply entrenched local government challenges. He described the roundtable as “an effort born out of shared concern and collective hope to reshape and revitalize local governance and traditional institutions for the benefit of our communities across Nigeria.”
Highlighting the core problems, Rafsanjani stated: “The Zaria Declaration offered us a bold vision, a call for urgent reforms to address the long-standing dysfunction at the grassroots level. Today, we gather not just to revisit those recommendations but to take decisive steps toward translating them into action.”
He elaborated on the structural weaknesses undermining grassroots governance across Nigeria: “We are all witnesses to the deeply entrenched structural and systemic challenges plaguing our local governments. From the absence of a clear and functional local governance framework to the erosion of fiscal and administrative autonomy and the lack of transparent and accountable institutions, our communities have been left vulnerable, underserved, and underrepresented.”
Equally concerning, Rafsanjani observed, is the faltering state of local traditional institutions that once served as vital conduits between government and community life:
“Those entities once anchored community cohesion. But in the absence of clarity in roles, legal backing, and resource support, these institutions struggle to adapt and contribute meaningfully to democratic and development processes.”
Setting a clear agenda for the roundtable, Rafsanjani underscored four critical objectives:
“To unpack and contextualize the Zaria Declaration to ensure its recommendations are not left in abstraction; identify gaps in legal, institutional, and operational frameworks impeding grassroots governance; ignite sustained dialogue between national and subnational actors around constitutional implementation, autonomy, and reform; and build a coordinated civil society and research-driven coalition that monitors and advocates for full implementation of these reforms.”
He made a compelling case for grassroots-led development, emphasizing how local government revitalization is the key to broader national progress:
“If we are serious about solving poverty, insecurity, exclusion, and inequality in Nigeria, we must begin from the grassroots. We must dismantle the structures of elite capture and revive local governments as engines of development, service delivery, and democratic participation. We must reposition traditional authorities as respected partners in governance, not relics sidelined by modern state structures.”
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