By Michael Egbejumi-David
demdem@hotmail.co.uk / Twitter: demdemdem1
2015 is around the corner and election season is upon us again. Do you fancy being the Chairman of your Local Government Area (LGA)? Well, the general administrative and operational setup of LGAs in Nigeria has changed. Conceptually, LGAs are supposed to be separate entities from State governments. Not anymore. That original model lasted only until 2003 when Obasanjo changed things. As a result, the funding of LGAs now comes directly from State Governors through the structure of the Joint State and Local Government Account. And that precipitated the birth of an entirely different ball game.
So, are you an enterprising Nigerian currently living in one of the major cities or domiciled abroad. Have you been thinking about being a Local Government Chairman? Ok, this is how to go about it:
- LGA terms are now all of two years. Elections are conducted by State Electoral Commissions (not INEC) strictly at the Governor’s pleasure
- From Abia to Zamfara, there is a proper Rotational system (rotation with a capital R) in place at this level. Generally, only one term is served. It is strictly a turn by turn, town by town, ward by ward, clan by clan event. First, find out when it is your area’s turn. Please do so at least 2 years in advance
- From your base begin to cultivate your LGA stakeholders
- Your State Governor + traditional rulers + political warlords = stakeholders
- Being a Governor is the loneliest job in the world. The man has a short attention span and an even shorter memory. But a few folks have his ears: his wife, his orderly, his driver and his kitchen cabinet which, in the main, is made up of his Personal Assistants (PAs) – particularly those that were directly appointed by him, and no more than 2 or 3 traditional rulers
- Find out when any of them or their spouse would be coming into your neck of the woods. When they do, pick them up from the airport, pay their hotel bills, or, better yet, accommodate them in your home. Tell them that your wife’s cooking is better than the hotel’s. Drive them everywhere. They return home and say wonderful things about you. But don’t be cheap; one bad word from these people and your still-born project goes up in smoke
- Remortgage/refinance your houses (or sell one of them); plus get other loans. On average, N42.5million / £150,000 / $244,000 should suffice. Remember, Primaries week alone would cost you about N10m
- Send ahead a 4-wheel drive jeep to your hometown for later use
- Stock up on bags of rice and salt, posh mobile phones and recharge cards
- Stock up on expensive drinks
- Then begin regular visits home
- Start attending funerals, chieftaincy parties, church/mosque dedications
- Sink a borehole or two
- Pay some school fees – but only at the Primary and Secondary school levels
- While you’re doing this, please do not let it cross your lips that you are interested in any political office oo
- After about a year of this, step up the frequency of your visits
- Find out who in your LGA is in sweet with your governor. This is when and where you begin to distribute your fancy mobile phones
- Get what the Italians call a Consigliere. In Nigeria, he is known as an Agent – a trusted foot soldier. He should cost you no more than N1m at the end of the day
- Take your expensive drinks and your GMGs (Ghana-must-go) and begin to visit the stakeholders
- Visit all the Ward Chairmen, Ward Secretaries, Women leaders and Youth leaders and do the needful
- This is called Entry Behaviour
- Become friends with the boss of the NURTW in your area. These fine gentlemen do more than just control of road transport workers, you will discover
- If you can, get a small government contract to build a small road or a small public building in your LGA. The people will think you are doing it in a private capacity. Do not correct that misconception
- Then you make your formal announcement
- Present yourself at a function where your State Governor is in attendance. Grab the microphone; make a sizable donation after you have lavished His Excellency with much praise for his socio-infrastructural achievements in your area - even if you yourself can’t see any. Don’t stop there; lustily pour invectives on the heads of His Excellency’s political enemies
- The 419 boys will outspend you. Some of them will turn up at local palaces and community events with a troupe of dancers. But don’t let that trouble you unduly. Play up your professionalism, your ideals and your gentlemanliness
- If you’re coming from abroad, your greenness will be seen as an advantage. It will be perceived as refreshing and you won’t be seen as too negatively clever or too hardnosed like some of your home-based competitors
- Play possum; allow a local idiot to be your ọga
- Get your good deeds in the local media. Make sure your Agent at every opportunity is telling your governor, “My man did this, my man did that.” And the governor should delightfully respond, “Ah, so and so from Lagos/Abuja/Kaduna/Port-Harcourt/London/US is still on the ground?” Your Consigliere would say, “Your Excellency, that transformer we commissioned the other day, that was him oo”
- All these should get you in
- Now, you’re in; let’s say your LGA is due N98m every month. Your State’s Finance Commissioner will diligently go to Abuja and collect that N98m
- Your fine supportive governor will only give you – on a good month – about N48m
- On assuming office, you discover that LGA workers have not been paid for 2 months
- There are about 14 wards in your LGA. Councillors earn about N232,000 every month in salary and allowances. Supervising Counsellors earn more
- Recurrent costs, teachers, secretariat staff, sanitation people, technicians, clerks, etc, etc have to be paid promptly every month
- Traditional rulers and political warlords have to be paid even more promptly or you are out and the Governor would appoint a Caretaker Chairperson in your stead
- When all that is done, you barely have N3m left
- But that is not all. You are frequently called at short notices to host and entertain State and Federal visitors to your LGA. That means lodging, food, drinks and gifts
- You cannot directly source for these of course. You have to contract it out to one of the stakeholders’ wives - possibly the wife/girlfriend of the Governor or one of the traditional rulers for about N1.5m
- Remember the 4x4 you shipped home? Vulcanisers keep planting nails at strategic junctions in town. How many times can you patch one tire? Moreover, your roads are tough and have told on the poor jeep. You have to replace it
- You have laid out more than N42m to be elected and have creditors to settle; plus your wife won’t stop shinning
- Halfway through your tenure, you realise that the financial arithmetic don’t add up so you become a philosopher-politician and begin to think very deeply
- You cannot possibly go back to your old life and your old work after your tenure. You would need a moderate but modern house in Abuja or Lagos as you plan your future and bigger political adventures, like, for instance, being one of the many PAs or Special Advisers to your Governor
- Meantime, on one of your many trips abroad, you managed to talk your town’s people in the Diaspora into promising to build a community hall back home
- You’ve come to rightly understand that in Nigeria, loyalty is bought; so you begin to cultivate the very special friendship of the Finance Commissioner
- With the help of your new friend, the Finance man, you don’t pay worker’s salary for the last 2 or 3 months of your chairmanship. You simply keep those for yourself
- Now, there’s just the one remaining matter – the elephant in the room: You’ve done bugger-all for your LGA in 2 years. Don’t worry; you simply didn’t have enough money or enough time for that.
Change is of course, the only constant in life. So this too will change for the better at some point in Nigeria. But for now, that is how it’s done.
Speak later, your Honourable.