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CREATION OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS AND ETHNIC
CONFLICTS IN NIGERIA: THE CASE OF WARRI, DELTA STATE
By Ukoha Ukiwo1
ABSTRACT
Using the case of Warri where local government creation triggered bloody violent
ethnic conflicts, the article seeks to elucidate the paradox in which decentralization
triggers instead of ameliorating conflicts. It shows that decentralization encourages
violent group mobilization when it ignores historic local grievance and is perceived to
be biased in favour of some groups. To be effective in conflict resolution,
decentralization should be attentive to the history of inter-group relations especially
historic grievance against inequalities.
Introduction
Shortly after his re-election as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2003,
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo caused panic among local government chairmanship and
councillorship candidates and their patrons who were worried that the third tier of
government was about to be scrapped. The candidates who had secured the ticket of
their parties at great financial costs were alarmed after the president announced the
indefinite postponement of local government council elections, pending the reform of
local governments. The President said:
What we have witnessed is the abysmal failure of the Local Government
system. It is on record that at no time in the history of the country has there
been the current level of funding accruing to the Local Governments from
the Federation Account, yet the hope for rapid and sustained development
has been a mirage as successive Councils have grossly under-performed in
almost all the areas of their mandate….The number of Local Government
Areas (LGAs) had also risen steadily from 301 in 1976 to 774 currently
listed in the First Schedule, Part I of the Constitution of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria, 1999, yet the clamour for the creation of more LGAs has not
abated. Indeed, as of date, a total of over 500 new LGAs are in the process of
being created by various State Governments. At the same time, the number
of States has tripled from twelve to thirty-six since January 1976 without
addition of land area to Nigeria (Obasanjo 2003)
1 An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the CRISE West Africa Workshop, March 2006,
Accra, Ghana. I appreciate the useful comments of the discussant and participants that have enriched
my appreciation of the subject.
2
As one of the architects of the Local Government Reforms of 1976, Obasanjo
bewailed that local governments have produced exactly the opposite of their original
objectives. Instead of bringing government and development closer to the people,
local governments have produced absentee local government chairmen2 who are only
seen at council headquarters when the monthly ‘Abuja Allocation’ arrives and
vamoose with their standby jeeps and mobile police escorts after superintending over
the sharing of the local government’s share of the national cake among the relevant
stakeholders.
Consequently, local government chairmanship has become one of the most attractive
and lucrative elective positions, after the presidency and governorship, prompting
most state governors to intervene to preside over the unbridled decentralised primitive
accumulation. The state governors anxious to checkmate the emergence of
countervailing local politicians have used both legal and political strategies to
domesticate local governments. Most of the governors have exploited the
constitutional provision for the establishment of Joint State and Local Government
Account (JSLGA) to control local government funds. Moreover, most state governors
orchestrate the nomination and subsequent election of their acolytes as local
government chairmen. Aspirants who emerge victorious after the tortuous
electioneering process are usually those who had pledged allegiance to the governor,
including accepting whatever deductions the governor may make from the JSLGA. It
is hardly surprising that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
alleged that 31 out of 36 state governors have tampered with local government
council funds (This Day, 28/09/06). Human Rights Watch (2007) has in a study of
five LGAs in oil-rich Rivers State detailed the various strategies that state government
2 Only 6 women were LGA chairpersons between 1999-2003.
3
officials and local politicians have used to divert funds meant for provision of basic
social services for the people at the grassroots.
The implication of this is that local government is perceived as having brought
corruption, misery and disempowerment rather than development and community
empowerment closer to the people. Paradoxically, non-delivery of service to the
community has not moderated the craving of Nigerians for local government areas.
As successive military regimes instrumentalized creation of states and LGAs to buoy
their sagging legitimacy, elites from different communal groups jostled for new LGAs
and particularly the headquarters of such LGAs. It is in this context that some groups
that disagreed with the outcome of such exercises resorted to violent mobilization.
The article will show how this dynamic unfolded in Warri, where the location of the
headquarters of a newly created LGA triggered one of the worst ethnic conflicts in
post-civil war Nigeria. Before turning to the case study, the intermediate sections will
provide a historical overview of the evolution of local governments in Nigeria, and
the interface between the national question and the politics of creation of local
government areas.
Evolution of local government in Nigeria
The precursor of local government was the native administration established by the
colonial administration. As one of its principal authors posited, Native Administration
was:
Designed to adapt to purposes of local government the tribal institutions
which the native people have evolved for themselves so that the latter may
develop in a constitutional manner from their own past, guided and restrained
by the traditions and sanctions which they have inherited, moulded or
modified as they may be on the advice of the British officers. It is an
essential feature of the system, within the limitations, the British Government
rules through these native institutions which are regarded as an integral part
4
of the machinery of Government with well defined powers and functions
recognised by Government and by law and not dependent on the caprice of
an executive officer (Cameron 1934).
The Native Administration was charged with the collection of taxes, maintenance of
law and order, road construction and maintenance, and sanitary inspection, especially
in township areas. This system of government, which was modelled after the Millsian
ideal of local representation, generated two types of conflicts among the fledging
ethnic groups in Nigeria.
The first arose in cases where two or more ethnic groups were ‘lumped together’ in
one native administration. Given what Post and Vickers (1973) have aptly called the
‘differential incorporation’ of Nigerian peoples into Nigeria, some groups who had
earlier access to the British and had acquired some education tended to dominate the
Native Administration. If such domination could be justified, as the British did, on the
grounds of the opportunity it afforded the privileged group to groom others in the art
of governance, the superimposition of the paramount ruler of one group as permanent
native authority even when there was no pre-colonial history of dependent relations,
encouraged local separatism. Most of the groups joined in such non-consensual
matrimony agitated for separation and independence.
The agitation was born out of fears of cultural assimilation and political domination.
If the objective of native administration was to administer the native through his own
culture, the agitators for separate native administrations wondered why the colonial
officers whose ‘Intelligence Reports’ had sometimes documented stark cultural and
physical differences between them and the other group decided to put them under the
leadership of a separate customary authority. Thus, in seeking divorce from such
unions the marginal groups harped on their cultural differences, the distance it took
5
them to get to the native courts and the fact that they do not understand the language
of the neighbouring group, usually used for meetings and court sessions, and that their
taxes were being used to sustain other communities (Ikime 1969).
The dilemma the colonial administration faced was how to reconcile the need for
recognition of local autonomy with the criterion of administrative efficiency and
economic viability. Thus, it made local autonomy contingent on guarantees of
administrative efficiency. Any request for separate native administration that did not
meet the criteria of viability and efficiency was dismissed as ‘uneconomical and
retrogressive’. This emphasis on the price the agitating community was willing to pay
as a precondition for decentralization served both the colonial administration and the
communities who were so separated from ‘bondage’. For instance, some native
administrations established when the great depression and the women’s riots had
affected staff morale were still able to meet their targets in tax collection. In Warri
Division, the District Officer gave the following remarks about some Urhobo
speaking communities who resented paying taxes when they belonged to the Jekri
Sobo Native Administration:
The Jekris, a race of waterside traders, had, in the early days of contact with
Europeans and Africans, obtained ascendancy over the far more numerous
and very primitive Sobos by intrigue, the power of wealth and by means of
arms and powder supplied by European traders. Although British rule had
protected the Sobos from excessive exploitation by the Jekris, a residual Jekri
ascendancy had remained. When a small fraction of the Sobos became
literate a Sobo Risorgimento movement came into being. Made use of very
skill-fully during the past four years, this movement led to a successful
pacification of the Province and to collection of tax without difficulty
(RHA/MSS/Afr. 1000 (1)).
Generally, the practice was to allow communities that did not pass the test of viability
to have their own native courts, while denying them a native treasury and authority.
This was preferable to allowing them to go back to traditional methods of settling
6
disputes. Nonetheless, such communities never gave up but continued to demand
separation.
The second type of conflict that challenged the basis of native administration
emanated from urbanization. It derived from the attempt of the British colonial
officers to reconcile the demands of taxation with representation in emerging towns,
which had attracted hardworking ‘natives’ from other parts of the colony. This is
because there was a conflict between the expectation amongst resident tax papers to
be represented on the native administration and the expectation of sons of the soil
should be excluded from the native administration. In response to this conflict,
colonial officers, which were already fed up with the senile chiefs who snored at
meetings and saw the native administration as ‘mutual benefits societies’, and were
also facing pressures from educated nationalists, established urban and municipal
authorities where resident taxpayers were eligible for elections to the Councils. While
this did not pose any problem in most urban areas, establishment of municipal
authorities generated controversies in towns such as Calabar, Port Harcourt and
Warri, where stranger elements outnumbered the natives. This is because the natives
in these towns were afraid of external domination (Lloyd 1974, Wolpe 1974, Nwaka
1990). As the Resident of Calabar Province noted:
The question of consent has, in all negotiations for the development of local
government for Calabar, been paramount. Deadlock has in the past always
been reached over the problem of how to reconcile the vested interests of the
local Efiks with the aspirations of the more energetic and numerous strangers
who have for many years paid more than half of the tax collected in
Calabar…The Efiks feared that a municipal organization with elected
members of geographical wards would, with uncontrolled stranger
immigration, rapidly involve loss of any control over the most important
part, politically and financially, of their territory (NAE/Calprof. 7/1/146).
This fear was not misplaced, because ‘non-natives’ won the elections in the three
towns generating resentments and ethnic conflicts.
7
These two types of conflicts influenced reform measures that both the colonial
officers and the emergent nationalist elites especially in southern Nigeria where
indirect rule was generally controversial. The Eastern and Western Regions adopted a
multi-tiered local government structure to accommodate both elected and traditional
elements. There were no major reforms in the Northern Region where the system of
indirect rule was more successful. For instance, the Northern Region retained the
nomenclature of Native Authority and powers of traditional rulers which were
progressively removed in the East and the West. This notwithstanding, in all the
regions with the advent of multi-party politics in the 1950s, dominant parties in each
region used the local governments as instruments for political control at the
grassroots. The native or customary courts, the local government treasury, the local
government or native authority police, and the local government sanitation inspectors
were deployed to oppress and exploit opposition party members. Even in the southern
regions where the local government reforms of the 1950s were partly driven by the
need to promote democracy at the grassroots, ruling parties often abolished elected
councils which they replaced with ‘interim’ management committees made up of
loyal party members.
It is hardly surprising therefore that the military officers that took over power in 1966
said they were actuated by the need to stop the desecration of the national and
regional political landscape and terminate political terrorism at the grassroots.
However, while the short-lived first military regime of Gen. T. Aguiyi-Ironsi might
have contemplated a national solution, the uproar and dissent its decision to introduce
unitary system of government generated made the succeeding regime to eschew a
national reform of local governments (Gboyega 1987). Thus, during the Gowon
regime which lasted from 1967 to 1975, the different states operated different systems
8
of local government. In the Northern states, the Emirs retained some of their powers
and influence because the councillors appointed by the military governors were
traditionally and spiritually expected to defer to the authority of the Emir. The Eastern
States and in the Midwest states abandoned the conciliar system adopted in the 1950s
for development administration, modelled after the French system of deconcentration.
Local government became a de-facto agent of administering state government projects
and programmes at the locality. In the West, state governors who had initially posted
sole administrators to local government areas where forced by the tax revolts of the
late 1960s to reintroduce local participation.
The military officers who toppled Gowon in the bloodless palace coup did not think
that the existing state of local government would be amenable to the kind of
democratic order they envisaged for the country and for which they reportedly took
over power. It is against this background that the Murtala/Obasanjo regime carried out
the local government reform of 1976.3 The reforms were revolutionary in the sense
that it was the first time a uniform local government was being initiated for the entire
country. The reforms were also revolutionary in the sense that by one stroke, local
governments were equipped with political, administrative and fiscal capacities. Local
Government became a third tier of government with constitutional functions and
responsibilities. They would be constituted through elections for a fixed term.
Revenue was guaranteed because federal and state government were statutorily
mandated to devote a specific percentage of revenue to the local government.4
Traditional rulers could only serve the councils in advisory capacities. Local
3 The reforms were initiated by Gen. Murtala Mohammed but executed by Gen. O. Obasanjo who took
over after Mohammed’s assassination.
4 The amount was to be determined by the national or state legislature.
9
government service boards or commissions were constituted at the state level for the
recruitment, promotion and discipline of staff.
Above all, the 301 local government areas were listed in the 1979 Constitution to
guarantee their perpetual existence. In creating these local government areas, the
military government emphasised the need for viability and administrative efficiency.
The minimum population for an area to qualify for local government was 150,000
while the maximum was 800,000. Elections on non-party basis were conducted into
the councils, which were subsequently required to elect a delegate to the Constituent
Assembly that deliberated on the proposed 1979 Constitution.
The litmus test for the local government reforms was the reintroduction of partisan
politics in the Second Republic. Local government became a victim of the vicissitudes
of party politics and competition for power. The problems were partly constitutional
because there were loopholes in the 1979 Constitution, which the politicians were
keen to exploit for political advantage. The constitutional provisions for the state
controlled local government service board, a JSLGA and state oversight functions
undermined the autonomy of local government. Moreover, there were confusions in
allocation of functions between the federal, state and local government councils.
Many state governments took advantage of this ambivalence to either take over local
government functions or funds to finance responsibilities they were supposed to share
with the councils. It also became common for state governors to withhold funds to
local government. This prompted one federal legislator who claimed that the
‘distributable pool was no longer re-distributable’, to remind the governors that:
Local government are not creatures of state governments but one of the tiers
of government of this country. Every effort should be made to allow local
government councils to operate with prestige and not as beggars of a state
ministry of finance begging for money (Ogan 1980).
10
The worst violations of the autonomy of local councils however stemmed from
political machinations. The politicians realised they could trade local councils for
votes as there were agitations across the country for more LGAs as local elites eyed
local councils which now had guaranteed funding. Politicians also realised they could
balkanise local governments for electoral purposes. As elections approached most
state governments dissolved local councils and appointed loyal party members who
were expected to deliver votes in the locality. Little wonder, the local government
councils were deeply involved in the large-scale electoral fraud of 1983.
These abuses arose partly from the incorporation of the local government in the
evolving federal character principle and electoral systems of the presidential systems
chosen for the Second Republic. The composition of the council was to be consonant
with the federal character principle, which required every part to be represented.
Local governments were also to form the basis for composition of the state executive
council and representation in the national assembly. Just as the electoral policy
introduced to encourage parties to seek support from all parts of the country, required
a presidential aspirant to secure electoral votes from a certain number of states, the
1979 Constitution also stipulated that the gubernatorial candidate should reach out to
the local councils for votes. So whereas local government was originally intended for
grassroots development and empowerment, it was drawn into the vortex of high
politics. There was no longer separation, allowed in the literature, for the ambitious
national politician and the community servant. Local patrons and fledging elites
embarked upon cacophonous allegations of ‘discrimination in distribution of
amenities or in appointments, especially to positions of chairman or supervisory
councillors, in the local government concerned as the main reason of their discontent’
11
(Gboyega 1998:403-4). Consequently, by the time military intervened in 1983, the
number of local councils in the country had more than doubled from 301 to 703.
Many of the new LGAs did not effectively take off because one of the first decisions
of the Buhari regime was to abolish the LGAs the politicians had created. While
reverting to the 1976 LGAs, the regime set up a Panel to look into the issue of LGAs.
However, before the panel could report, the Buhari regime had been toppled in a
palace coup, which brought in Gen. Ibrahim Babangida.5 The new regime introduced
the structural adjustment programme (SAP), which was, among other objectives,
intended to terminate the development model that expropriated the surpluses of the
rural peasantry to appease the volatile urban working class. Decentralization was
pursued vigorously, not only through local governments but also several federal
government agencies such as the Directorate for Foods, Roads and Rural
Infrastructure (DFFRI), Better Life for Rural Women, Peoples Bank, National
Directorate for Employment, etc. that were established to cushion the effects of SAP.
The agencies were expected to have field offices and projects in all local government
areas. However, there is little evidence that these agencies helped to build capacity in
the communities. Most of the projects were designed and executed by contractors
unknown to the host communities. Many of them were abandoned and communities
could not hold any one to account.
The Babangida administration also made local governments part of his elaborate
democratization programme. Elections were phased to begin at the local councils,
through which delegates would be selected to the state and to the federal levels. The
federal government built secretariats for the two ‘test tube’ parties in all LGA
5 The panel eventually submitted its report to the Babangida administration. It upheld the abolition of
the LGAs and recommended that government should consider establishing new LGAs, every ten years.
12
headquarters. After the June 12 debacle, it became evident that these programmes as
well as the creation of more states and local government areas were legitimization
structures for the civilianization of the military rulers. They allowed Generals
Babangida and Abacha to buy support from certain interest groups. For instance, the
isolated Gen. Abacha directed local governments to devote between 5 and 10 percent
of their revenues to traditional rulers within the local government. This triggered
communal conflicts as subordinate chiefs sought paramount ruler status in order to
access the ‘maintenance allowance’ (Mustapha and Jones 2003).
Local government also became conduit pipe for looting of national treasury. For
instance, the elite club of LGA chairmen called the Association of Local Government
of Nigeria (ALGON) reportedly mandated the maximum military leader to deduct
local government funds for the purchase of two Toyota land-cruiser jeeps for all
LGAs. One of the jeeps was allocated to the LGA chairman while the other belonged
to the police to facilitate effective policing and combat of armed robbery. In a context
where multiplication of LGAs had become a lucrative business for military dictators,
it is not surprising that by the time the military handed over power in 1999, there were
774 LGAs in the country. Again, the president’s diagnosis is apt:
We also notice that proliferation of State Governments has been matched by
proliferation of Local Governments without adequate consideration for
viability. In fact there is clear evidence that the creation of Local
Governments has been for reasons that not only negate the objectives and
principles of the 1976 Reform, but, in some cases, are clear expressions of
patronage by revenue distribution to favoured areas or interest groups
(Obasanjo 2003).
The transformation of local governments into patronage resources for favoured groups
alienated groups who felt they were not favoured. In other words, local government
creation became a metaphor for power and powerlessness. Why this should be the
13
case would be clear as we consider the link between the national question and the
politics of creation of local government.
The National Question and Creation of Local Government Areas (LGAs)
As the 2003 elections approached, about 500 new LGAs had been created or were in
the pipeline. This created a conflict between the federal government and states that
had created local governments as the federal government claimed it would not release
funds from the federation account to LGAs that are not listed in the constitution.
While this non-release of funds forced the concerned state governments to scrap the
new LGAs, Lagos State government refused to bulge, risking non release of funds for
LGAs for several months. Lagos was obviously able to sustain the resistance because
it is the state with the largest non-oil internally generated revenue. The state
government was also hoping it would defeat the federal government in the court of
public opinion because Lagos had since become the ‘killer fact’ advertised by
complainants of the inequities in creation of LGAs. Both those sympathetic to the
plight of Lagos and those who used its ‘predicament’ to advance their own cause have
argued that Lagos was created on the same day as Kano and also has more population
than Kano. However, Lagos has 20 LGAs while Kano and Jigawa, which it birthed in
1991, have 71 LGAs (Sagay 2001).
The Lagos case has been raised by southern elites who have since the 1990s agitated
against so-called northern domination. It is alleged that successive ‘northern’ military
rulers favoured the North in the creation of states and local governments. The
southern elites therefore insist that central to the resolution of the national question is
14
a restructuring of the ‘unbalanced’ federation. As Table 1 shows, the local
governments are unevenly distributed across geopolitical zones. The North-West zone
has a quarter (24%) of the LGAs in the country while other five zones have between
12 per cent and 18 per cent. However, the table also shows that the zone has a quarter
of the country’s population. If population and landmass which were among the
criteria for creation of local government areas in 1976 (Mbanefoh and Egwaikhide
1998), are used as yardstick for assessment of fairness, then the military midwives of
the state should actually be commended for a job well done.
Table 1: Distribution of LGAs by geopolitical zones
Zones No. of
LGAs
% of
LGAs
Population6
in millions
% in national
population
North Central (+Abuja) 120 15.5 12.5 14
North East 111 14.3 11.9 13.4
North West 186 24 22.9 25.8
South East 95 12.2 10.8 12.1
South South 123 16 13.3 15.1
South West 139 18 17.4 19.6
Total 774 100 88.8 100
Source: Compiled from Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999).
However, given the controversies that have dodged population census in the country,
communal claims, especially from minority groups, on the state are rarely based on
population. Rather groups who feel short-changed by the system have canvassed
equal recognition and treatment of all groups or in the case of revenue allocation,
insisted that the share of each group should depend on its contribution to the national
revenue.
The strongest challenge to the present structure has come from the oil producing
states where minority rights activists complain that oil revenues have delivered more
6 Based on 1991 census figures.
15
local government areas to regions that make marginal contributions to the Federation
Account. South-South elites allege that ‘northern’ military dictators deliberately
followed the footsteps of the colonial administration, which created an ‘imbalanced
federation’ that gave the North veto power over legislations that are not in the North’s
interests. These sentiments were evoked in 2001 when the National Assembly voted
against a bill for the resource control proposed by South-South delegates to increase
the share of oil revenues that accrue to oil producing states from the Federation
Account. For instance, Itse Sagay professor of Law and minority rights activist said:
It is clear that no bill can pass through the house without the concurrence of
the Northern States. But bills sail smoothly through the House, even if the
whole of the Southern representatives oppose them. That is permanent
power, installed by a combination of the colonial master, the AREWA
political oligarchy and the Northern military organization. The statistics are
interesting. Whilst the Southern States have a total of 357 councils, the
Northern States have 419 councils out of a countrywide total of 776 (sic). On
the issue of representation in the House of Representatives, the North has
182 seats as against the South’s 154. It was therefore no surprise that the
courageous bill for resource control … was defeated by the permanent
Northern majority by 81 votes against the 64 in favour. ..In the same manner,
the numbers of local governments per state have been so structured, as to
give the North a permanent majority in local governments. The major
implication of this is that the direct funding of local governments from
Abuja, means that the bulk of the 20% of the Federation Account that goes to
local governments, ends up in the North (Sagay 2001-original emphasis).
It was such agitations which heated up the Nigerian polity that informed the
convening of the National Political Reform Conference in 2005. As would be
expected the ‘Resource Control’ debate dominated the Conference’s proceedings. In
fact, the Conference ended unceremoniously when the South-South delegate walked
out following the refusal of delegates from the North and the West to adopt a
recommendation for a phased increment of derivation funds from the present 13
percent to 50 percent in the next decade.
16
The southern states have also challenged the rights of the federal government to create
local government, describing the current practice as a travesty of ‘true’ federalism.
For instance, the Delta State Delegation to the Conference submitted that:
The over-concentration of powers at the centre, has led to an unsalutary
governance mode, which seeks to produce an uncreative homogenization.
Federalism is not about uniformities, but recognition of diversities and
autonomy of the different components. The imposition of a central authority
on all spheres of activity as has occurred since the return to civil rule violates
the independence of the federating units. It has fostered the attitude of a
bullying imperial arrogance at the centre in its relationship with the
states…Diverse development initiatives which should naturally be the
bounteous harvest from the pluralist essence of federalism are scorched, if
they stray beyond the horizons and mindset of the almighty centre. This is
especially the case if some of these initiatives are popular with the people,
and issue from a State run by an ‘opposition’ party. A state dares to create
new Local Council to catalyse development and efficient administration, and
it is immediately denied even its legitimate share of revenue. A state
introduces a scheme to facilitate the flow of traffic in its territory, but this
popular initiative is prohibited by ‘big brother’ centre, on the ground that the
roads are ‘federal’ property! In effect the possibilities of our national growth
and development are limited by the level of the centre’s wisdom at any point
in time (Delta State Government 2005:45).
The state canvassed the restructuring of Nigeria on the basis of zonal units and asked
the federal government to relinquish control over local government. Like most
southern states, Delta State wants the state governments to have sole responsibility for
creating and funding of local government. It also wants state governments to
determine the tenure of local government councils. However, this recommendation,
which is likely to expand the scope of the powers of state governments, is not popular
among ethnic minorities in the states. Moreover, as Sklar (2004) has observed,
minorities would not be willing to accept the regional/zone structure. This is because
minority groups are wary of replacing one majority rule with another (Mustapha
2000). It is in this light that the position of the Itsekiri Ethnic Nationality needs to be
juxtaposed with that of the Delta State Government.
It should be noted that in constituting the state’s delegation to the National Political
Reform Conference, the Delta State Government ensured that all five major ethnic
17
groups were represented. However, even though the Itsekiri intelligentsia was among
the team that produced the Delta Memorandum, the Itsekiri Ethnic Nationality still
sent its own Memorandum to the Conference. Interestingly, the Itsekiri took a
different stance on most of the issues. While the Delta State Government wanted
states to be responsible for creation of local governments, the Itsekiri preferred the
system where the federal government created the LGAs. They asked for more
autonomy from the state through the abolition of the Joint State and Local
Government Account and the Local Government Service Commission. The only issue
where the Itsekiri position dovetailed with that of Delta State Government was the
undesirability of the uniform system of local government. The Itsekiri asked for
deepening of decentralization to grant local governments more autonomy in funding,
supervision and staffing. According to the Itsekiri:
The Local Government Councils should be reformed. Unified local
government system should be abolished. Local Government Service
Commission should be abolished. Councils should be empowered to hire and
fire its employees. Uniform salary structure for Council should be abolished.
Each LG Council should fix the salary of its workers (Itsekiri Ethnic
Nationality 2005)
By seeking control of recruitment into local government, minorities like the Itsekiri,
intend to exclude civil servants from other parts of the state from working in their
local government. They also asked that derivation funds should be channelled
directly to the local governments and communities from where they are produced.
The concern of the Itsekiri arises from fears of Urhobo domination in Delta State.
This fear historically made the Itsekiri to oppose all Urhobo-led demand for states
creation (Omuta 1982). Since 1991 when Delta State was created Itsekiri fears seem
to have been confirmed as the Urhobo have produced all elected governors of the state
till date. Itsekiri already claim that Urhobo governors have worked against Itsekiri
18
interests and fear that the Urhobo dominated State Government would create LGAs
for Ijaw and Urhobo in Warri if states were granted the powers to create states.
The Conference Committee on Fiscal Federalism recommended that that local
government should not be used in revenue allocation and that states should be allowed
to set up local government since the 1999 constitution already gives them the residual
powers to do so. The Committee also recommended that JSLGA should be scrapped
and that the same principle that is used for allocating revenue in the federation should
be adopted to allocate revenue among local governments in the state (NPRC 2005).
The report of the Conference was submitted to the National Assembly to consider
during the constitutional review process.
However, the constitutional review process was overshadowed by the controversial
attempt of President Obasanjo to change the constitution to fulfil his ambition to
remain in power beyond the two-term limit. The surreptitious mobilization, which
became known as the third term ‘project’, ended in a dramatic fashion when the
Senate voted to discontinue consideration of the bill. Incidentally, the ‘project’ failed
because its advocates were unable to get the support of northern federal senators and
representatives (Harriman 2006). While South-South legislators claimed they
supported the unpopular project because it was linked to the increase in derivation
funds, their South-East counterparts said their support was a quid pro quo for new
local government areas (Sklar, Onwudiwe and Darren 2006; Harriman 2006). If the
‘project’ had succeeded, more local governments would have been handed out as
‘patronage’ to some ‘interest groups’, and intriguingly, under Obasanjo’s watch.
The foregoing discussion offers insights into some of the considerations that inform
the creation of local government areas (and states) and such decisions which are often
19
taken in the name of decentralization have triggered violent conflicts in
Ife/Modakeke, Osun State, Tafawa Belewa, Bauchi State and Umuleri-Aguleri,
Anambra State and Warri, Delta State (IPCR 2002, Ibeanu 2003). The remaining
section of the paper examines the Warri case.
Creation of Local Government Areas and Ethnic Conflicts in Warri
Located 30 miles from the sea on the landward margins of the mangrove swamp of
the Western Niger Delta, Warri developed as a colonial town as European firms
established factories and the British colonial administration established a viceconsulate
there in 1891 (Lloyd 1974:227). The nuclei of the town were the Itsekiri
settlement of Okere and the Urhobo settlement of Agbarrha. However, the town
eventually grew into other Urhobo, Itsekiri and Ijaw settlements. In 1906, Warri
became the capital of Central Province, one of the three provinces of the Southern
Protectorate. It later became headquarters of Warri Province and Warri Division.
While the Province was made up of Itsekiri, Urhobo, Ijaw, Isoko, and Kwale, the
Division comprised of the Itsekiri, Urhobo and Ijaw communities surrounding town.
However, while the Itsekiri are only found in the Division, the Ogbe-Ijoh, Gbaramatu
and Egbema Ijaw communities and the Agbarrha and Okere Urhobo communities
constitute an infinitesimal proportion of the larger Ijaw and Urhobo ethnic groups.
The ethnic structure of Warri is therefore tripodal, ‘one in which there are only three
groups’ (Bangura 2006:4). While the Itsekiri are the majority in Division, they are a
small group in comparison with the larger Urhobo and Ijaw ethnic groups. Ethnic
20
conflicts in Warri have been driven by the struggle for pre-eminence in both Warri
Town and Warri Division.
This struggle for pre-eminence has its roots in the pattern of external contacts and the
role each of the ethnic group played both in external trade and colonial penetration.
The Itsekiri played the middleman role in the slave and oil palm trade while the
Urhobo supplied both the slaves and oil palm. The Ijaw, who remained fishermen as
they were cut off from the trade only featured as ‘pirates’ (Ikime 1967). The
inequalities generated by external trade were reinforced by patterns of colonization.
The Itsekiri were dominant in the early colonial period because of the role that Chief
Dore Numa, an Itsekiri merchant played in the subjugation of resistance to colonial
rule in Benin River and Benin Kingdom. The British rewarded Dore with the position
of Paramount Ruler in the Province, a position which he used to favour other Itsekiri
elites and cultivate clients among Ijaw and Urhobo who desired appointments into the
Native Administration. The Itsekiri easily became the governing class in the Province
during the period of indirect rule. The Urhobo and Ijaw resented this role as they
claim there was no pre-colonial history of subjugation to the Itsekiri. The result was
persistent separatist agitations which culminated in the anti-tax riots of the late 1920s.
Careful not to reduce the sphere of influence of their friend the colonial officers only
began serious reorganizations in the early 1930s following the death of Dore. The
Urhobo who were the largest ethnic group in the Province were able to get two
Divisions between 1933 and 1948. However, Itsekiri, Urhobo and Ijaw rivalry
persisted because the Ijaw and Urhobo communities in and around Warri Town were
left in Warri Division and there was the unsettled question of which group should
control Warri Town itself. When the British bowed to pressures from the Itsekiri to
21
reintroduce their Kingship institution after Dore’s death, the Ijaw and Urhobo were
concerned it was a ploy to subject them to Itsekiri paramount rulership. This is
because the Itsekiri wanted their monarch to designated ‘Olu of Warri’ and to relocate
from Ode Itsekiri, the traditional capital of the Itsekiri before the eclipse of Itsekiri
kingship in the 1860s. While the colonial officers acceded to Itsekiri demands that the
monarch should live in Warri because it was administratively speaking convenient,
they refused to recognise him as Olu of Warri even though they admitted that the precolonial
Itsekiri kingdom was also known as Warri kingdom.
The advent of representative politics and full penetration of trade in the hinterland
aggravated tensions in ethnic relations in Warri Province. The Urhobo were able to
take over both political and economic power. While Urhobo merchants traded directly
with foreign firms that established factories in Urhoboland, the Urhobo were able by
majority vote to elect their own sons into the newly established Western Region
House of Assembly. This generated resentment among the Itsekiri who had hitherto
produced provincial representatives at the Nigerian Council and the old Legislative
Council, which existed between 1914 and 1945. The enlargement of membership of
the legislature and introduction of universal suffrage in the 1950s led to the rise of
political parties.
In the context of the ethnic conflicts in the region, ethnic political alliances became an
attractive option for ethnic elites. Thus, while most of the Itsekiri elite declared for the
Action Group (AG), most of the Urhobo elite and Ijaw elite supported the National
Council of Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC). In the 1951 elections the AG, which
formed the government in the Western Region, rewarded the Itsekiri with a
ministerial position. The Urhobo and the Ijaw did not have any position even though
22
there were more Ijaw and Urhobo legislators in the House of Assembly. The
resentment of the Urhobo and Ijaw against the AG government was aggravated by the
decision of the government to recognise the Itsekiri monarch as Olu of Warri. It was
this decision that provoked the first ethnic riots in Warri Province in 1952 as the
Urhobo attacked several Itsekiri villages. Although the Province was renamed Delta
Province to assuage the fears of other ethnic groups, the recognition of the Itsekiri
monarch as Olu of Warri and the alleged Yoruba domination of the Region became
the basis for agitations of minorities in the region for a separate state. At the local
level, the Ijaw and Urhobo in Warri Division intensified their campaign to be
separated from the Itsekiri. As earlier indicated, problems also arose from who should
control Warri Town as Igbo migrants and Urhobo from outside the Division were
more in number than the Itsekiri. While the Urhobo dominated the Council, the AG
government appointed only Itsekiri traditional chiefs as members of the Traditional
Council. This and the quest of the Urhobo and Ijaw in Warri Division to be separated
from Itsekiri would create the impression that the Division belonged to the Itsekiri.
The establishment of a Commission to inquire into the fears of minorities in 1957
provided an opportunity for the three ethnic groups to air their grievances. When the
Commission headed by Sir Henry Willink’s visited Warri, representatives of the
Itsekiri, Urhobo and Ijaw made their submission. While the Urhobo supported the
creation of Midwest Region, the mainstream of Itsekiri leadership opposed it
preferring to be merged with Ondo Province as part of the Western Region.7 On their
part, the Ijaw asked to be merged with Eastern Ijaw to form a Rivers State. Putting
7 A group of Itsekiri elites under the aegis of Warri People’s Party (WPP) aligned to the NCNC
supported state creation.
23
forward the Itsekiri position, Hon. Gabriel Ekwejunor-Etchie, who represented Warri
East Constituency at the Western Region House of Assembly said alleged that:
Since the introduction of democracy, Urhobos, Ijaws and Ibos have used the
right to vote as a useful weapon of domination of the Itsekiri people. The Ibos
acting in alliance with the Urhobos have employed all the means at their
disposal to dominate the economic life of the Division. They control the Warri
Urban District Council and there have employed all discriminatory methods in
their avowed aim to exterminate the Itsekiri people (BNA/CO 957, File No.
WA/1/23).
But while the Itsekiri avoided Urhobo and Ijaw domination, the Urhobo and Ijaw in
Warri demanded separation from the Itsekiri. For instance, the Ogbe-Ijoh Local
Council Area told the Commission that:
This unconstitutional subordination has greatly affected us that we are not
heard by nor represented in the Western Nigeria Government. We are being
administered dictatorially by the Itsekiri in all local government affairs. This
will certainly eliminate the title ‘Ijaw’ when Nigeria will attain full
independence if the position is not rectified…..Since we have been under
Warri Division, we were and are remembered at the time of taxation or rating
but completely forgotten at the time of amenities. For example, ever since the
introduction of taxation in 1928, only person has been trained out and only
two now in the training in the same institution where over hundred Itsekiris
have been turned out as teachers of which some are now in the senior service
(BNA/ CO 957. File No. WA/1/29).
On their part, the Agbarrha-Urhobo opposed any move to relocate them along with
the Itsekiri to Ondo Province:
We do not propose to quarrel with the choice of the Itsekiri people, but we
say that although we have all along been grouped with them for
administrative purposes much against our wishes, we certainly do not want to
be group with the Yoruba anywhere. Our 7 villages…known as Warri since
1893 must not form part of Itsekiri jurisdiction in their move to Ondo (BNA/
CO 957. File No. WA/1/29).
The Willink’s Commission did not recommend the creation of states and the rivalry
between the groups continued into the post-colonial era. It was not until 1963 that the
federal government acceded to demands for the creation of the region. The
Constitution of the Midwest Region became a source of conflict because it essentially
24
recognised Warri Division as Itsekiri homeland and reserved all elective positions to
the Itasekiri. By this legislation, the Urhobo and Ijaw could not contest for election in
Warri or be appointed to any elective positions from Warri. This remained the
position until the post-civil war period, when the military government appointed an
Urhobo as member of the Warri Division Management Board. The Itsekiri, however,
dominated the local government board.
Following the 1976 Local Government Reforms, Warri was divided into 13 wards. In
the first election into the council, the Itsekiri won six wards, the Urhobo five wards
and the Ijaw two wards. The position of chairmanship was contested by an Urhobo
and an Itsekiri. However, before the elections were conducted Egbema, one of the
Ijaw wards was transferred to Ondo State, which left Warri with 12 wards. The result
of the transfer is that when the elections eventually took place, there was a tie as the
Itsekiri candidate won six wards while the Urhobo candidate won six wards made up
of the five Urhobo wards and the remaining Ijaw ward. The Urhobo and Ijaw alleged
that the transfer of Egbema was an attempt to pre-empt the victory of the Urhobo
chairmanship candidate, since the Ijaw wards were expected to vote for the Urhobo
candidate. The Ijaw and Urhobo also alleged that it was an Itsekiri who at the time
held the position of the Secretary to the State Government that masterminded the
transfer and eventual appointment of Itsekiri as chairman.
The allegation of insider dealing and favouritism was raised again in 1977 when the
State Government classified clans and traditional rulers. The Urhobo complained that
it was the Itsekiri Secretary to the State Government and the Itsekiri Commissioner
for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs that stopped the recognition of Urhobo
clans and traditional rulers in Warri. The Warri Traditional Council of Chiefs was
25
dominated by Itsekiri as the Olu was not only its permanent president but also the
Permanent Deputy President of the State Council of Traditional Rulers. The Ijaw and
Urhobo boycotted the council when the Itsekiri majority adopted Itsekiri as the
Council’s language of business (See, Imobighe, Bassey and Asuni 2002).
Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, the Urhobo and Ijaw used every opportunity
for LGAs creation to request for separate LGAs. They based their claims on the
discriminatory practices allegedly orchestrated by the Itsekiri to exclude the Urhobo
and Ijaw from participation in the local government. The government did not grant
this request. Instead, in 1978, 1982 and again in 1992, some Ijaw clans were
transferred to other Ijaw LGAs in the state. Such transfers were revoked as a result of
the administrative problems involved as the Ijaw had to cross several other LGAs to
get to the LGA headquarters. Moreover, the Ijaw refused to be transferred because
they did not want to lose Warri Township. During the Second Republic, political
parties exploited these divisions by supporting one group against the other. Thus,
while the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) Government transferred the Ijaw of Warri to
Burutu (an Ijaw) LGA, the Ijaw were transferred back to Warri by the National Party
of Nigeria (NPN) Government, which took over after the 1983 elections.
In 1991, the Babangida administration created Delta State as one of the nine new
states. However, against the expectations of the proponents of the state, some parts of
Benin Province were joined to Delta Province to make up the new state and the
headquarters of the state was located in Asaba which was under Benin Province.
There were protests against the composition of the state and its capital because it was
widely believed that Asaba was chosen as capital because it was the hometown of the
first lady. Much more disappointments trailed the creation of local government areas
26
in the same year. Warri was divided into two local government areas, Warri South and
Warri North LGAs. Against the expectation of the Ijaw that the new LGA would be
called Nein-Ibe LGA and its headquarters situated in Oporama, an Ijaw Town, Koko,
an Itsekiri town was announced as the headquarters of the new LGA.
However, the worst disappointment for the Ijaw came in October 1996 when the
Abacha regime announced the creation of six states and 138 local government areas.
Based on the announcement by the state military administrator, the headquarters of
the new local government area created in Warri was Ogbe-Ijoh, believed to be an Ijaw
community. However, when the federal government gazette which legalised the new
LGAs was published, the headquarters of the new local government area in Warri was
Ogidigben, an Itsekiri community. The Itsekiri therefore protested and the local
government headquarters was subsequently relocated to Ogidigben. It against this
background that the Ijaw who were celebrating their new found freedom from socalled
Itsekiri domination with the new LGA allegedly launched attacks on Itsekiri
communities. Hundreds of lives were lost and Ijaw youths allegedly destroyed and
occupied about 25 Itsekiri villages. The State Government established a commission
of inquiry whose report was not published because the Itsekiri had boycotted its
proceedings citing the bias of the state military governor. The crisis lingered until
2003 when Itsekiri youths carried out retaliatory attacks destroying Ijaw villages. This
was the most destructive in terms of loss of lives and properties.8 It crippled the
economy of Warri causing oil companies and ancillary firms to shut down as the
Nigerian Army which was deployed to Warri was unable to quell the conflicts given
the sophisticated weapons available to the combatants.
8 Since reports of all commissions of enquiry and presidential panels were never published it is
impossible to ascertain the exact number of lives that were lost in the Warri conflicts. However,
submissions of the groups to the commissions and newspaper reports suggest that more than 1000 lives
were lost.
27
Although the immediate cause of the conflict could be traced to the relocation of the
local government headquarters from an Ijaw community to an Itsekiri community and
was therefore an Ijaw-Itsekiri affair, the Urhobo were drawn in thus re-enacting the
tri-dimensional aspect of the conflict. Urhobo involvement stemmed from the
persistent Itsekiri opposition to all moves by the government to recognise two
traditional rulers for the two Urhobo communities in Warri. It also stemmed from the
alliance between the Ijaw and Urhobo to terminate Itsekiri stranglehold on Warri
LGAs. Since its inception in 1976, the Itsekiri have produced all the elected chairmen
of Warri LGA. The Itsekiri have also dominated the chairmanship position of both
Warri North and Warri South West LGA, even after the latter’s headquarters was
relocated to Ogbe-Ijoh on the orders of the Delta State Government.
Even in employment into the councils, the Itsekiri have been dominant. For instance,
a Federal Character Commission panel set up to look into complaints of the Ijaw
confirmed that all 413 workers of Warri North LGA were Itsekiri whereas there was
no Ijaw staff member. Moreover, although the Itsekiri and Ijaw respectively had 11
and 9 wards in the LGA, 35 political appointments in the LGA went to the Itsekiri
while only six Ijaw were appointed (Ogafere 2005). Furthermore, the Ijaw and
Urhobo alleged that social amenities have been concentrated in Itsekiri areas even
though most of the oil from Warri are sourced from Ijaw and Urhobo areas (Urhobo
of Warri 1997 and Gbaramatu Clan Communities 1997). It is as a result of such
allegations of bias in allocation of social amenities and employment opportunities that
location of the headquarters of local government areas has attained central
importance. The group in whose land the local government area is located tends to
benefit from the infrastructure and amenities as well as employment opportunities that
the local government secretariats attract.
28
While such grievances have generated conflicts the principal reason for the
degeneration of the conflicts into violence is the perception of state bias. This
perception that the state favours one group at the expense of the others is evident in
the following words that appeared in a leaflet that was distributed in Ijaw and Urhobo
sections of Warri during the conflict under the cover of darkness:
This is an urgent piece of information to you the Okere Urhobos and the
Ijaws in general. Your enemies have a very bad plan for you. Any moment
from now before the end of the enquiry they are going to bomb houses of the
Okumagba families and the Ijaw big men all over the town even those living
inside Okumagba layout and other parts of Warri and some Ijaw
villages…The aim is to kill all who may live in these houses, principally the
Okumagbas and all Ijaws families that own their own houses in
Warri…Their objective is to create room for breakdown of law and order to
make the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency and use their
Godfathers to lobby the Federal Government to take over Warri as federal
territory, which has always been their aim and their dream…Do the
following immediately: Blow out this plan of your enemies to the world
immediately. Arrange for securities in all your domains and Urhobo towns
and settlements within Warri municipality. But you must not strike first as
their Godfathers will still use your first attack on them as an excuse to make
Warri a Federal Territory for them (Emphasis added).
The context of this rumour sheet is the perception that the Federal Government has
favoured the Itsekiri. For instance, Ijaw elites claim that an Ijaw member of the
Armed Forces Ruling Council had assured them in 1991 that the Council agreed to
create an Ijaw LGA in Warri. They believed the Itsekiri used their influence as top
bureaucrats to change the new LGA to an Itsekiri LGA. The Ijaw leaders alleged it
was the same connections that informed the relocation after Ogbe-Ijoh had been
announced as LGAs (Gbaramatu Clan Communities 1997). On the other hand, the
Itsekiri elites claim that the local government was never destined for Ogbe-Ijoh but
that the state military administrator was only keeping his promise to his Ijaw superiors
in the military when he announced the creation of a non-existent LGA (Concerned
Itsekiri Citizens 1997). The Itsekiri have also alleged that the state governor, an
Urhobo, has favoured the cause of the Ijaw and the Urhobo. They attribute the
29
unilateral decision of the governor in 2000 to take back the LGA headquarters to
Ogbe-Ijoh and the subsequent creation of development areas in Warri LGAs as
evidence of the governor’s bias.9
The perception that the state favours particular groups is fuelled by the utterances of
elites who have served in government positions. Such elites usually brandish their
achievements for their ethnic groups in their aspiration for leadership of their ethnic
groups. This was the case in 2001 when two Ijaw leaders, Chief Edwin Clark and
Chief Wellington Okrika, were involved in a leadership tussle. While Clark, widely
known as Ijaw National Leader, is not an indigene of Warri where he has lived for
many years, Okrika is a traditional chief of Gbaramatu Clan in Warri. Conflict
between the two arose from the decision of Clark to mobilise the Ijaw to disown a
peace agreement that Okrika had signed on behalf of the Ijaw. Okrika had signed an
agreement which demanded that Ijaw youths should withdraw from Itsekiri
communities they occupied during the conflict. In questioning Clark’s leadership
credentials, Okrika paraded his own contribution to the cause of the Warri Ijaw. This
included his contribution to the longstanding struggle of the Ijaw in Warri for a local
government. The following statement shows that he was aware of the circumstances
that led to the announcement which subsequently led to the conflicts in 1997:
Col. J.D.Jungs assumed office as the military administrator just as the
creation of more local government were announced by the Federal Military
Administration in the country. I went to the Government House in Asaba to
discuss with the new Military Administrator. I was then the chairman of the
Family Support programme in Delta State. Thus, I had quick assess (sic) to
9 Development Committees were introduced in 2005 as part of the Governor’s Road Map to Peace in
Warri. The plan essentially decentralises management to the ward level to allow wards take charge of
administering development in their area. This is done in the expectation that it would contain
allegations of ethnic bias. See, Delta State of Nigeria (2004).
30
the new Military Administrator, where I was briefed about the full details as
its affects our local government (Okrika 2001).10
If such assertions were confined to private correspondence, they would not have
affected public perception they way have done. They have shaped public perception
because the claims also appear in books that are meant for public consumption. For
instance, Gen. David Ejoor, the first military governor of Midwest State and former
Chief of Army Staff outlined his achievements in a recent book on the Urhobo.
Instructively, the achievements includes influencing creation of local governments,
appointments of Urhobo as chief judge and justice of the supreme court, and
exemption of Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) from the blanket ban of ethnic
associations in 1966. On the specific Warri conflicts, he claimed he ‘established the
fact that Urhobo and Izon people legally own Warri metropolis’ (Ejoor 2005:136).
The Ijaw and Urhobo politicians and military officers publicly made such claims
because of the widespread belief that Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, an Itsekiri chief, who
was Finance Minister in the First Republic was responsible for inserting the special
minority clause in the Midwest Region Constitution which declared Warri Division as
Itsekiri homeland.
Moreover, the upsurge of conflicts in the 1990s can be linked to the rise of ethnic
nationalism in the Niger Delta as various groups struggled to stake their claims on the
Nigerian state. This has meant that Ijaw leaders in order to present their group as the
fourth largest ethnic group and by so doing compete favourably with the three major
ethnic groups (Nwajiaku 2005), have embarked irredentist mobilizations to bring all
Ijaw groups together. This has made the Ijaw in other parts of the country to be more
sympathetic to the cause of the Warri Ijaw. Following the example of the larger Ijaw
10 The Family Support Programme (FSP) was a pet programme of the first lady. The fact that Okrika
was the State Chairman of the Programme suggests he had close links with the Abachas.
31
community, Warri Ijaw youths formed their own organizations, notably the Federated
Ijaw Niger Delta Communities (FNDIC), which spearheaded the violent mobilization
of the Warri Ijaw. Itsekiri elites have alleged that it was the presence of the ‘Big
Brother’ in the background that emboldened the Ijaw in Warri to attack the Itsekiri in
1997 (Ejueyitchie 1997).
The 1990s also witnessed the resurgence of Urhobo nationalism as Urhobo leaders
tried to portray the Urhobo as the fifth largest ethnic group in the country. The
Urhobo claim that despite their contribution to the national cake, they have been
marginalised in the scheme of things (Akiri 2002). In trying to forge a common
identity, the Urhobo have become more sensitive to the ‘plight’ of their brethren in
Warri. In 1999, Chief Benjamin Okumagba an Urhobo from Warri was elected
President-General of the revitalised Urhobo Progressive Union (UPU). The combined
resurgence of Ijaw and Urhobo nationalism have put the Itsekiri under pressure
because the Itsekiri leadership have realised that they can no longer contain the Ijaw
and Urhobo of Warri.
Concluding remarks
In 1997 the violence that spread across various parts of the country over the issue of
local government headquarters revealed that decentralization, which ideally should
promote peaceful development at the grassroots can also have destabilisizing
consequences. This article has traced decentralization related conflicts to the early
years of colonial rule when native administration structures privileged certain groups.
It argued that separatist sentiments that emerged during the colonial period have
32
continued to affect efforts to bring government closer to the people because
communities conceive local government as antidotes to discrimination, inequality and
exclusion. The matter was aggravated when the LGA reforms of 1976 guaranteed
federal funding of LGAs. This transformed local government into a component of the
proverbial national cake to be shared to competing interests.
In the context of demands from all interest groups, the process of creation of local
government became less transparent and it seemed that military rulers dispensed local
governments as patronage to favoured groups. This situation alienated some groups
who felt they have lost out from successive local government exercises and that new
local governments have not met their aspirations for self-government and
development. It is in this context that creation of new local governments triggered
violent conflicts between ethnic and communal groups. The situation where local
government became patronage resources also encouraged corruption as elites who
claim they were responsible for influencing the creation of the local governments
have turned it into their spheres for accumulation. Consequently, even in those
communities that new local governments were created, the aspiration of the people for
development has yet to be met even though traditional rulers and local politicians are
richer and more powerful.
As early as 1965, the United Nations emphatically pinned the fate of many of its new
member nations on the adoption and thoroughgoing implementation of
decentralization. It defined decentralization as ‘the transfer of authority on a
geographic basis, whether by deconcentration (i.e. delegation) of authority to field
units of the same department or level of government, or by devolution of authority to
local units or special statutory bodies” (Cited in South Eastern State, 1973). This
33
bundling of two theoretically distinct approaches raised the concern of scholars who
preferred the unbundling and separation of deconcentration and devolution (Wraith
1971). The comparative literature on development administration generally preferred
devolution, even though in the context of one party state (Africa) and benevolent
dictatorship (Asia) that gripped the postcolonial nations devolution seemed farfetched.
Economic decline, which set in the 1970s and 1980s, adversely affected the capacity
of even those states that followed the path of deconcentration to maintain field-staff.
In this period, the literature veered from the issue of framework to focus on the
objectives of decentralization. Scholars were increasingly interested in whether the
objectives of decentralization, whatever form it took, were being achieved
(Adamolekun 1991). The objectives were identified as administrative, political and
economic and scholars also, in this liberal frame of mind, extended decentralization to
encompass non-governmental and community organizations as well as privatisation of
provision of local goods and services.
With the collapse of one-party regimes and return of multiparty elections, attention
was turned to considering the relationship between decentralization and
democratization. Decentralization was considered beneficial to democracy because it
would not only deliver the political good of representation but also enhance delivery
of economic goods (Crook and Manor 1998). The result of this postulation was that
decentralization increasingly became part of the political conditionality for aiddependent
countries (Ndegwa 2002). Also in the aftermath of civil wars in some
conflicts, decentralization has been advanced as a veritable tool for peace-building
and post-conflict reconstruction (Premdas 2006).
34
These approaches have enhanced our understanding of decentralization, especially its
potential positive impact on human development of the neglected majority who
inhabit the peripheral sphere of the state. However, the concern for deliverables has
he unintended political effects of decentralization deserve more attention. As
Fanthorpe (2006) has highlighted in his case study of Sierra Leone, decentralization
can strengthen authoritarian and patriarchal structures at the grassroots rather than
promote community democracy and governance. It is worthwhile to consider the
results of decentralization not only on the basis of stated objectives of the government
but also the responses of civil society and powerful interest groups. There is need to
find out what interests drive decentralization and what price communities have to pay
for it. This would reveal nested interests that explain why decentralization sometimes
fails to deliver development but rather fosters inter-group conflicts.
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