Controversy has continued to trail the recent creation of three metropolitan authorities by Governor Nasir Ahmed El-Rufa’i as a new tier of governance in Kaduna State. Some Local Government Areas [LGAs] were selected from the state’s three senatorial zones and structured into Kaduna Capital Territory Authority, Kafanchan Municipal Authority and Zaria Metropolitan Authority.
Following the passage of a law creating them on Monday October 11, the governor reshuffled his cabinet and nominated three cabinet rank administrators to oversee them.
Earlier in this Republic, some state governments, notably Lagos, Niger and Nasarawa, created an additional tier of government called Local Council Development Area [LCDA] in order to sidestep the constitutional hurdle of creating new LGAs. Then President Olusegun Obasanjo however refused to recognise them and he withheld the concerned states’ LGA Federation Account allocations. Obasanjo said LCDAs was unconstitutional as the 1999 Constitution only recognises three tiers of government: federal, states and local governments. The legal tussle over the LCDAs’ constitutionality lingered for years until the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the states.
Kaduna’s metropolitan authorities, however, appear to differ from LCDAs. The law establishing them was gathered from existing laws governing the operations of ministries, departments and agencies [MDAs] as well as LGAs in the state, making the metropolitan authorities a hybrid tier. For example, Section 5 of each of the laws states that: “As from the commencement of this law, the powers and functions vested in various ministries, departments and agencies and the local governments and itemised hereunder, are delegated to be exercised exclusively by the authority within the areas more particularly described in the schedule to this law.”
The law delegated 16 powers to the authorities including construction of arterial, connector and estate roads; maintenance of roads, street lightings, utility ducts and drains; cleaning of all roads, drains and waterways; maintenance of gardens, open spaces, parks, recreational or such other public facilities; naming of roads and streets and numbering of houses; provision and maintenance of public conveniences, sewage, waste collection and refuse disposal; as well as the establishment, maintenance and regulation of markets, motor parks and on-street parking. This new law has taken over many statutory functions of some MDAs such as the Kaduna State Urban Planning and Development Authority, KASUPDA.
While the failure of LGAs in their mandates may have prompted the emergence of this hybrid tier of governance, the solution does not lie in the creation of metropolitan authorities. It rather lies in strengthening existing structures to function effectively. If LGAs and MDAs are made to function efficiently, there shall be no need for metropolitan authorities.
