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KWENU: Our Culture, Our Future |
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Town Government: A Paradigm Shift in Community Management Paper presented during the national convention of Enugu Association, USA, Inc. in Miami, FL, August 1 – 3, 2008
M. O. ENÉ, Ph.D. New Jersey, USA
Saturday, August 2, 2008 ABSTRACT It is heartwarming to note that Nigeria’s democratic experiment is holding in the Fourth Republic. Most Nigerians now agree that even pathetic political practices in a flawed federal but democratic dispensation are better than army autocracy and general military madness. Alas, our state and local governments—the second and third tiers of our federation respectively—have not delivered dividends of democracy to our towns and villages, our grassroots societies. Our people are left hoping and expecting miracles of basic amenities from faraway Abuja. It will not happen; it has never happened in any federation of states. Corruption, the flogging factor for underdevelopment, has not helped; but there is a deeper rot than corruption: dysfunctional dispensation at the grassroots level. The reason is simple: Unaccountable and supposedly elected fellows dominate out local polity. The individuals have no clue what drives development, what appeals to our people, or what to do to assure the survival of all our various communities. Since politics drives development and all politics is local, we must refocus on rebuilding our grassroots societies on familiar and tested town-government models, thereby instituting purposeful and sustainable societal setups that give our people a sense of belonging and a group focus on desired development. This presentation proposes a paradigm shift in local governance. It shows how town governments can constitute a functional fourth tier without upsetting the present pseudo-monarchical models (eze/igwe institutions) and without contravening current constitutional complex. Based loosely on ancestral principle of “Ebe onye bi ka ọ na-awachi”—where you live, there you thrive—it also shows how town governments will work in urban settings.
INTRODUCTION The essence of a town government is to deliver a wide range of effective and efficient services to its residents and to meet the challenges of modern living as they evolve. Igbo communities are organized as independent sociopolitical and economic entities along democratic doctrines and in keeping with the principle of Igbo enwe eze (rugged republicanism). Even the acclaimed respect for elders is earned; it is not necessarily automatic.
Core communities in Igboland are ruggedly republican from time immemorial. They had no kings or queens, no organized military, no standing police force, and no prisons. However, the Igbo interacted a lot with their neighbors and migration was normal. So some communities took on some monarchical garbs even before the colonists came and crowned crude citizens and fringe fellows as “warrant chiefs.” Gradually, these men made themselves lords of the land and evolved into “traditional rulers”!
On June 19, 1973, Ichie Noo Udala of Umuaga (Udi LGA, Enugu State), aged c.102, took us back to the days gone:
Before the white man came we had no chief that saw to the affairs of the town. But we had several institutions that helped us organize our activities. The government of this town was not vested in one man. …. In the olden days, each village had a person that we could now call a chief to head the town's political and administrative activities. This man was normally the oldest man of that village, and was called onye ishi ani. Within this village we have another man that heads the affairs of a 'lineage' or umunna called okenye umunna. During any cases affecting the whole town, the ndi ishi ani, village heads, would meet and discuss effectively the issues involved. They met as equals….
[From Igbo Worlds: "Village Democracy: An Agbaja Example," collected by E. N. Okechukwu.]
Since independence, decades political gerrymandering and social engineering have given Igboland a skewed sociopolitical structure. From this sociopolitical anomaly, two main outcomes developed in Igbo community management:
1. TRADITIONAL RULERSHIP Ebere Nwaubani wrote in Chieftaincy Among the Igbo: A Guest on the Center-Stage:
A striking feature of the contemporary Igbo political ecology is the overbearing presence of Their Highnesses, the “traditional rulers.” At least at the local levels, these “kings” are clearly the most visible and powerful political players. In many areas, their word is law. But more than ever before, these rulers are appropriating monarchical attributes to themselves: brand new titles, thrones, palaces, regalia, the requisite court mannerisms and ceremonials, and the rest of the regal paraphernalia. Even more striking is the fact that the wider society has accommodated, or perhaps simply resigned itself to, the ascendancy of these “traditional rulers.”
As confirmed by Noo Umuaga, pre-colonial communities in and around present-day Enugu State had no for-life chiefs. The coming of colonists changed the status quo ante. The British appointed warrant chiefs in an effort to build an extended empire into the heart of Africa. By 1917, Chief Onyeama n’Eke had become not just a warrant chief in his Eke community but “Okwuluọha Agbaja”—the virtual king of Agbaja authority, which covered most of the area I call “Waawlandia”… the lands situated between three state capital cities from Awka through Enugu to Abakaliki and beyond. At his peak, Onyeama was at par with such century-old, established kings as the Ooni of Ife, Alaafin of Oyo, Oba of Benin, Sultan of Sokoto, and Shehu of Borno.
Onyeama dreadful demise crippled the emerging and expanding Agbaja kingdom. With the huge void of no strong successor, other chiefs could not scramble fast enough to replace him, but some tried unsuccessfully to build their own little empires within what was left of Onyeama’s Agbaja kingdom. This continued until independence and after. During the Nigeria-Biafra War, many towns controlled by the Federal forces got their own chiefs, a pathetic repeat of Lord Lugard’s colonial mistake. By the mid 1970s, town chiefs became a government–supported trend, and the fashion is still en vogue.
As observed by Nwaubani, the Igbo society has embraced this anachronistic institution as if it has been there since creation. As our ancestors says “Alụlụna gbaa afọ, ọ bụrụ omenala.” [When an abomination lasts long enough, it becomes a tradition.] We even call the pseudo-monarchs “traditional rulers”! With direct and substantial purse from state governments, mostly from unaccountable security votes, the quest to become a traditional ruler and corner the trapping of archaic monarchy escalated. The craze has led directly to the balkanization of coalesced communities into the so-called “autonomous communities.”
2. AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITIES These communities are no more than a collection of villages under a peripatetic pseudo-monarch, a Mickey Mouse majesty clowning his way among an impoverished people. The creation of these artificial communities with ndiigwe (“their highnesses”) has caused more problems of varying proportions. No autonomous community has evolved the touted even development, for which it was created; rather, they spend years shedding blood, destroying properties, and suing each other to install their first “igwe”!
By early 2007, the administration of Governor Chimaroke Nnamani had created out of the 17 federally recognized local government areas (LGAs) of Enugu State about 436 autonomous communities and 39 development centers. This geopolitical gerrymandering has not brought the sought-after even development. Everyone knows the role of autonomous community is merely to repay some families for being loyal by appointing one of their own igwe (highness).
Since coming to power, Governor Sullivan Chime is yet to revisit this crude, anachronistic divisions; he has instead added to the so-called development centers! In effect, the government is remolding the balkanized communities under new-fangled and bigger communities called “development centers.” Why anyone tinkered with already set communities in the first place is anyone’s guess. In making communities functional, size should not matter. The more the merrier, especially when we want a larger tax base; but the smaller the saner!
Many town unions have largely ignored these new divisions; they only find use for those who use igwe stool to feather their importance or to secure a lifelong social security benefit. [The Enugu State government pays their highnesses a minimum of $1000.00 every month plus other freebies from the so-called security vote.]
There is only one answer to this sociopolitical status quo: Dismantle them both and in their place institute a more Igbocentric and people-oriented community management paradigm composed of the following: Executive, Legislature, Judiciary, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
OCHICHI OBODO (Town Government) Town Unions are already playing the role of town governments; however, their activities are not well defined. Hence, there is frequent fracas between the union and the igwe institution on one hand, and between the people and some overly ambitions officials on the other. In addition, the practice of having a president-general of the town union resident in faraway Lagos or Abuja does not lend to people-oriented practices. It is unfair to suspend the needs of a town until, say August meeting or end-of-year general return.
The proposed “Town Government” or “Community Council” will coordinate and execute a comprehensive delivery of services to the community on a daily basis and in an efficient and effective manner. It will not exclude the activities of town unions based outside the town; on the contrary, it will encourage their involvement as well as provide the basis for further fiscal investments beyond the communal levies.
EXECUTIVE The town government is headed by a mayor (Onyeisiobodo), who will be the chief executive officer of the town. He will be elected in a town-wide non-partisan election by a simple majority of tax-paying residents home and abroad, or with a provision to score at least 25% in at least 75% of the villages that make up the town. S/he serves a maximum of two terms of two years each, and can only return to the same office after four years. A popular mayor can be elected as the LGA (county) councilor or vice versa, as long as the person is resident in the town.
LEGISLATURE Community Council (Ọha Obodo) is made up of village representatives called Nze. Each village elects its own representative in accordance with the town’s electoral rules and process. The Council is chaired by a Chief Councilor (Isinze), who is elected by his/her peers. In urban area, streets can be mapped out for equitably and effective representations.
The Community Council is the legislative arm of Town Government. In line with modern practices of checks and balances, it also approves budget, all key appointments of the mayor, as well as pass new levies into law. To make sure that all community-wide levies pass the minimum test of popularity, the Community Council may include all presidents of major town unions abroad and prominent NGOs as voting members.
JUDICIARY According to A. C. Nwosu, “The government created the chieftaincy (or Eze) institution with government statute (Chieftaincy Edict of 1978.)” and “The Eze or chieftaincy Institution was not created by the tradition and cultural mores of the people.” Although communities have different ways of electing their chiefs, nothing in the process is based on Igbo culture because the concept of an all-knowing, lifelong leader is alien to Igbo political philosophy. The fact that the institution has come to be does not mean that the Igbo cannot tinker with it and make it more tolerable to our character. Left alone, the Igbo would wake up one day with kings and queens of the ancient European mold, characters who caused so much mayhem until they Europeans adopted the Igbo way—popular democracy!
Nothing exemplifies more the state acceptance and pampering of the parasitic paraphernalia of “traditional rulers” as the report by Joe Effiong in The Sun:
Akwa Ibom State governor, Obong Godswill Akpabio on Tuesday, August 14, invited the paramount rulers from the 31 Local Government Areas in the state for a parley at the ministry of local government and chieftaincy affairs in Uyo::::: announced some juicy package for the royal fathers. These included a brand new car for each of the 31 paramount rulers and another N20 million each to the paramount rulers of Ini, Eastern Obolo and Ika Local Government Areas as assistance to rehabilitate their palaces vandalized or destroyed by militants or communal clash hoodlums.
With extra thousands of dollars monthly from salaries and unrecorded “security” soft stash, it is no wonder the traditional rulers wax stronger. To stop the bleeding of our communities, the eze/igwe institution should be transformed into a customary court where the Eze and Ndiichie (village heads) serve as the judge and jury respectively. It should be restructured by each community to reflect the aspirations and desires of the residents, not copy models of old and failed attempts at monarchy. Since most of these institutions are quite new and based on constitutions proposed by unelected regimes and purportedly adopted by the people, it will not be out-of place to amend the constitutions to reflect the true republicanism of Ndiigbo. The following lines are proposed for Eze setups:
1. To act as customary court in all non-criminal cases 2. Eze acts as ceremonial head of community during tenure 3. Eze inaugurates council (swearing in of Mayor, Community Council) 4. Age and term-limited tenure, preferable not younger than 50, retires after two terms of five years each, etc.
The Eze and his council of Ndiichie, probability with a representative of Ụmụada and Ndinyomdi) can also acts as a check-and-balance senate, where matters that do not receive 75% vote in Community Council, or are vetoed by the mayor, are put to final vote. If it fails to garner 75% of Eze-in-Council, the matter should be subjected to a simply majority win-or-lose in a popular referendum.
Affiliation to Ọzọ Society, Christian knighthoods, and social clubs cannot affect election to any of the town positions, but the person must be resident in the town. Once someone applies for and is elected as Eze, he must relinquish whatever enterprise he is involved in and relocate to the town. All meetings must be held at the town hall, never in Eze’s house, the so-called “palace.”
Among the case that can be tried by Eze Obodo and Ndiichie include:
NDI OTU (Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) These include, in addition to town unions scattered across the continents, several age-old sociocultural organizations:
NGALABA OCHICHI OBODO (Community Government Departments) Depending on the physical health of the community and the willingness of citizens to take up part-time appointments for full-time work, a community could float seven to ten departments. Many of these departments may be called different names, operated independently but reporting directly to the chief executive, or lumped together under a community clerk in charge of general administration.
1. NHAZI OBODO General Administration The Community Clerk (Odeakwụkwọ Obodo) is in charge of general administration of the community. The Mayor appoints the Community Clerk, subject to a simple majority approval by the Community Council. The Clerk provides full and comprehensive clerical support to the Mayor, members of the Community Council, the Electoral Commission, Community Departments, and other committees—standing or ad hoc.
2. OKWUEGO (Finance) The Finance Department maintains an accurate and up-to-date account of all assets and expenditures, records of levies, names of taxable adults, etc. The Department also informs the community citizens worldwide of any outstanding debts by email, letters, and phone calls. Sources of revenue include but not limited to: general and affordable annual levy for all taxable male home and abroad; property tax, based on house value; market stall taxes, village contributions to general administrations, business tax, donations from town unions based in major Nigerian cities and overseas, possible security funds from LGA and state; fines from customary courts, water rates; development grants from NGOs, etc.
3. MMEPE OBODO (Community Development) The Community Development Department will include Planning and Zoning, which maps out the entire town for effective long-term planning to make for ordered and sustainable development, erosion control, etc. The department is also required to perform special studies or projects, as assigned, which may include land use, demographics, housing, and building code modification.
The department also encompasses ỌLỤ OBODO (Public Works & Projects), which oversees all public works, reviews and approves plans for erosion control, road grading and maintenance, controlled demolitions, occupancy permits, administration of construction contracts, estimating costs of construction projects, planning of water and sewer projects, etc.
4. NCHEKWE OBODO (Community Policing) Working with the Nigerian Police Force, Enugu State has already introduced a model for community policing in Nigeria, thank to the proposal from Enugu Association, in USA in 2001. The model should be taken to the next phased and raised to a full-service law enforcement agency made of up at least two community police officers for each village, a central command of about 10 persons working shifts, and coordinated by a sheriff (Ọchịagha Obodo). The department will provide prompt and professional security service to the community. Besides community oriented policing, the department could charge feed for providing security coverage to individuals and groups for overtime payments.
Other functions of the department include: providing personal security and safety tips for townsfolk, informing the people about new federal, state, and local laws, maintaining a a functional public complain protocol for effective training of community police, police reports, criminal history, and fingerprinting services, making patrol to ensure house security, check on old folks after inclement weather, acting proactively to stop thefts and robberies, directing traffic, especially during social events, and enforcing traffic laws, protecting women and children from predators, preventing cruelty to animals, controlling domestic animals, etc.
5. EZUMEZU (Sociocultural Events) The Social Events Department provides quality programs and facilities for year-round social events with an eye on revenue generation. The department should strive to promote and publicize community festivities to attract tourist and boost community fiscal resources. The department sponsors and or supervises special events throughout the year including but not limited Masquerade Festival, Independence Day celebrations, August general denominational meetings, end-of-year general return, New Yam Festival, etc. It also erects and maintains memorial parks for community veterans. To achieve these important revenue-yielding activities, the department schedules and allocates space for all activities and for groups to have a hitch-free festival. It should also maintain the community center, allocate time to and charge groups on an established protocol.
6. AHỤIKE (Health) No community can survive without basic healthcare. Every community can easily afford ONE health center staffed annually by an NYSC doctor at the barest minimum, with four nurses working shifts and a midwife on call. The health department also undertakes the education of citizens on recent medical developments, the availability of specialists and where, warnings about medications, etc.
7. AGỤMAKWỤKWỌ (Education) Education is the key to progress. Though the state government is in-charge of primary and secondary education, nothing stops the community from attracting special schools sponsored by the private sector or on a private-public partnership. In addition, the department will maintain learning centers and a standard library.
CONCLUSION To move this proposal to the next phase, Enugu-USA should make provisions for town unions to meet during national conventions. Money spent in organizing several town “conventions” will be saved and put to good use. If we have steady and accountable town governments, no longer would someone breeze into town with a fistful of dollars and erect a mansion, then disappear for years while the structure accumulates and channels flood to erosion crisis centers. It is a long way from when mud-and-thatch houses dotted our villages. In these days, no community can afford to have concrete-and-metal carbuncle sprouting up all over the town without any plans for flood control, access road, and even esthetics. In modern societies, community councils must authorize any slight alteration to a building, and you cannot wake up one morning and fell a tree, neither can you hunt a deer, fish in a river, or set traps without permission.
Town government is not new in Igboland; it was functional even when the colonist tried to introduce warrant chiefs. The current local government model came into effect in the late 70s, and it should not have eclipsed the need for a more grassroots-based management of our communities. From results so far, it is obvious that the LGA system has not made any lasting impact on our communities and development centers will not work; the age-old self-help of yore still obtains.
Obi Nwakanma, Vanguard’s columnist, commenting on my proposal in Igbo Forum, an Internet forum, wrote: “The Town Council model is absolutely doable.”
I agree.
============ © MOE, 2008 REFERENCES Town of Vienna, Virginia: http://www.viennava.gov/ Town of Paradise, California: http://www.townofparadise.com/ Town of Tonawanda, New York: http://www.tonawanda.ny.us/ City of Cape Town, South Africa: http://www.capetown.gov.za The Township of South Orange Village: http://www.southorange.org/ Joe Effiong: Fear of witches: Akwa Ibom traditional rulers asks governor to tackle witchcraft, Uyo, Tuesday, August 21, 2007 A. C. Nwosu: Episodes in Encounter between the Town Unions and the Eze Institution in Igboland over Issues of Good Governance. Enugu State: Human Rights and Accessible Justice during the Proceedings of Igwes-in-Council in Enugu State, December 2003
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