Bashorun Babatunde Tajudeen Rotinwa, was a former Chairman, Lagos State Local Government Service Commission between 2015 to 2019, under the administration of Mr Akinwunmi Ambode as the Executive Governor of the state. This was after he served as the Head of Service (HOS) for nine months under the military administration of Col. Buba Marwa in Lagos State, before the commencement of this democratic dispensation.
Rotinwa had, on returning to Nigeria in 1976, got enlisted into the service of the Lagos State Government as an Inspector of Education Grade Level 1 and he was redeployed to Lagos State Government College, Ojo. In 1978, he transferred his service to the Local Government and he was posted to Somolu Local Government Council. He headed the taskforce which improved the council’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). He was promoted to the position of the Senior Assistant Secretary to the Council in March 1978.
In 1983, during the civilian administration of Alhaji Lateef Jakande, Rotinwa became the Council Manager and he was posted to Epe Local Government. He initiated the construction of the Council’s secretariat and staff quarters at Itamarun, Epe, among many other laudable and impactful initiatives. In June 1981, he was promoted to the position of Principal Assistant Secretary and later Principal Secretary. In 1982, he was posted to the Somolu Local Government where he also served as the Council Manager with many achievements to point at.
Following the incursion of the military back into politics in 1983, Bashorun Rotinwa was appointed as the Secretary to the Mainland Local Government. It was during his service at Somolu that the council emerged as the Local Government of the year due to many laudable innovations. Between October 1987 to July 1991, he was in the Ministry of Local Government, first as the Secretary for Staff Development and Service Matters and later as a Director in the wake of the 1988 Civil Service Reforms.
Between July 1991 and 1993, Rotinwa served at the Local Government Service Commission as the Director for Establishments and Training. He also acted as the Director – General of the Commission and later in full capacity as the Director – General. In February 1997, he was posted to the Office of the Local Government Administration in the Governor’s Office as the Permanent Secretary. This was his last duty post before he was appointed by the then Military Administrator of Lagos State, Col. Buba Marwa, as the Head of Service in September 1998.
In this interview with Kunle Adelabu, Publisher/Reporter – in – Chief, THE IMPACT, and Mariam Akinloye, a reporter, at his home in Ikorodu, Bashorun Babatunde Rotinwa, who in some few years back served as the Chairman, Ikorodu Division Resource Development Group (IDRDG) and doubled as the Chairman, Ikorodu Town Hall Management Board (ITHMB), shared his experience as an administrator who had served in different capacities in the local government service; what the service was before 1999 and post the present democratic dispensation; challenges and way out; roles of some government agencies and arm in the decadence in the local government administration and implications of the Supreme Court judgment on Local Government autonomy.
He also rated the one council area and five other Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in lkorodu division, stating that they have not fared better and also shared his view on the IDRDG in the recent time. Excerpts:
THE IMPACT: You are an authority as far as the local government system and governance generally are concerned, having served in many capacities at the council level and later served as Head of Service, Lagos State, most recently, as the Chairman, Lagos State Local Government Service Commission. Sir, what was the experience like at the council level before now?
Basorun Rotinwa: We did not just get the experience from the blue, we came in at a time when the Lagos City Council was dissolved and under the military administration, they carved out the Lagos Mainland, Surulere, Apapa and Lagos Island. We met the people who ran the Lagos City Council there and their experiences. Before that time, the boundary between the Lagos Colony and the Western Region was Fadeyi. So, from Fadeyi to the lagoon was Lagos City Council. They told us what they have done and how they have effectively run the primary health care, primary school, library and others and we realised that the bulk of the money that they used in running these programmes were gotten from the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). The efforts that they made were to set targets for the staff who brought in the money which were allocated as resources to all agencies and departments. So, we were opportuned to learn from the experiences of other people. We were given the opportunity to train and we improved on the job.
Coming from our own experience, especially under Jakande, we knew that we have a lot to do with the experience and our own initiative. For example, I read sciences but while in the US, I saw how they patterned the Municipal Administration and when I returned to the country, I decided that I don’t want to go into sciences but administration and I did and surprisingly, the science background that I have brought out all these things in me; we didn’t take no for an answer, rather, we went into the depth of any given situation.
What are we even talking about? We are talking about the development of communities; the sustenance of the community our people live by withdrawing those rural things and substituting it with modern amenities and the resources must be utilized effectively. That’s at the planning state of the local government level by putting all the resources together and allocating it to all the important things. When you take care of the salaries, there is something that we call running costs which are done over the years, then capital expenditure and special expenditure to buy equipment. These are aggregated and we would get the approval of the Ministry of Local Government and through that, we run the council. But, no sooner than the politicians came in, they just messed up the whole thing. Unfortunately, Nigerians don’t know. The politicians were just muddling up everything, showing that they are the ones in charge. They took away the responsibilities of the accounting officer and the chief executive officer and put it within the purview of the chairmen. I think that they said that they have returned the accounting officer responsibility to the Council Manager, but I don’t know. That’s when the mess started.
More so, since they allowed the federal government allocation to pass through the state, the state government now lives on the local government funds. They also grab major sources of revenue of the local government like the tenement rate, advertisement control which they now called LASSA, parking lot in commercial areas among others. These are the responsibilities of the local government and nobody is willing to go to the court to challenge the state government. At one point, they were saying that there is no arm called the local government and that everything stopped at the second tier. The end result is that development did not get to the grassroots. You sit at Alausa and decide what goes on at the local government. Look at what President Tinubu did when he said that the council is not enough and he created 37 development areas so that development can spread which was a very good move. With that good intention, one would have thought that they would just have fewer political office holders, instead, it was overloaded with political appointments which bear no consequence. You can go to the councils to see what roles they are playing. That has to be streamlined so that we can have a situation whereby, principally, the local government would perform the function for which they have been established for which is bringing developments to the grassroots in terms of social services and other roles like getting information on happenings at the council level to both the state and federal government. The federal government usually gets data or statistics from the local government which are usually routed through the state. The council and the state governments feed the federal government with much vital information.
My experience is that up to 1999, everything was working well at the local government level, but where we went wrong was that we overblown the political appointees’ roles. Not that they cannot have Supervisory Councilors, because we used to have them then, but not in this large number. They started having Special Assistants and the rest. What are Chief of Staff, Special Advisers doing in a local government? They are not contributing anything meaningfully. Of course, the intention of the political class is that once they have everybody under the roof, they can mobilse easily for election, but it is not working, whereas, these same people can be compensated by being given services to render. In other words, if I am a leader in my constituency, I can be given contracts like housing and market development projects and also contracts for palliatives to be distributed. It is not enough for you to be part of that structure because it is just a waste of money. In addition, there should be a review of whatever contract or project that has been given out on a bi or annual basis. You need to find work awarded out and if not, review it and give it out to a private consultant. It is the lack of monitoring and review that created the problem that we are in. The local government has become an empire for the politicians to do whatever they like.
Another concern is that when you generate money from a source, that source ought to be well taken care of. An example is the Lagos Road, I expected that all the adjoining roads that link the road ought to have been tarred with drains and streetlights.
THE IMPACT: The LGs are crying that they are left with a paltry sum to run the council, whereas, the state government has taken over the collection of their major sources of revenue internally like the car parks/garages, advertisement and signs among others. Also, the deduction of teachers’ salaries from the federal allocation which we do not have, is the yardstick that is being used. What is your position on this sir?
Basorun Rotinwa: Well, there are four categories of revenue that the local government has lost. The first category is the tenement rate which they called the land use charge now. There was an arrangement that got the consent of the chairmen to concede that to the state. As far as I am concerned, it is a wrong decision in the wrong direction. The local government staff must be trained and retrained for such collections like tenement rate. Some councils get between 25% and 70% of their total revenue from the tenement rate. Another one is commercial infrastructure which can come under market etc. The constitution permits the local government to be in charge of the advertisement which they now called LASSA, and there is a lot of money in it, but the state government grabbed the thing from them and they are now making millions from it.
When they started the agreement, it was agreed that the representatives of the local government will be on the board that will be monitoring the returns for them, but I don’t think that they are returning anything to them and if at all, it’s just nominal. That really killed the local government administration.
Under the Jakande administration, we used to say that the local government is a training ground for good politicians. When you run a local government very well, you become a House of Assembly member, Commissioner or a Special Adviser, because you already have the experience about all the duties but what do you see now, everybody is just doing what they like and that is why we are having all these problems. Whereas, with the 774 local governments in Nigeria, these are enough to live comfortably in the country. We have the Department of Agriculture and through these, the local governments can coordinate the farmers; get them necessary subsidies from the state and the federal governments to develop agriculture. They are in the best position to coordinate that and not the federal government. Instead of blaming the President for everything, this singular problem confronting our agriculture can be taken care of at the local government level. The same with the security issue that we are facing. It is the local people that can tell you foreigners that are just coming into their environment and they can feed the state necessary information to act on. The governors just grabbed everything to the disadvantage of the councils. The state is supposed to be giving them a certain percentage of money but they don’t give them.
When the Ikorodu Local Government made a budget of over N2billion, I cannot see 2% of its Internally Generated Revenue in it, and I challenged the Chairman that what was he telling us? This is the Internally Generated Revenue that used to amount to between 25% and 75% of local government money that has been turned into 1%. That’s how bad it is. They look at those rural communities as places that are not important, but they are. Whatever infrastructural facilities must be proportional to the needs of the people within a particular community. They have also collected the revenue on dredging which should be another source of revenue to Igbogbo/Bayeku and Ijede LCDAs who control Ibeshe, Bayeku and other riverine areas.
By the time the full responsibilities come back to the local governments, they will have challenges, because they must be able to train their staff and have targets. That is very key. There must be a forum within the local government for the administrators to give terminal reports on a quarterly basis. They must be able to inform the people about their activities – what they asked them to do and what they have been able to achieve. That’s how to do and review the system. That is how to know if there is a need for an additional allocation to a particular department. Unfortunately, they just do it anyhow they feel like It’s a one – man show. There is a need for review because we are talking about resources that may never come back again.
Look at the foreign exchange that is now giving them ten times what they have been collecting before. The President has approved that the money should be divided between the federal, state and the local governments. The local government is now getting more than what they used to get, is there any improvement in their service delivery? That must be looked into. The local government must be the vanguard of seeing things first in terms of developments. They could partner with an industrial or corporate body to get a certain amount of money to make the company established and assure them of necessary support. It’s just like buying shares and at the end of the year, they would have what they will be getting. Local governments must modify their service delivery. We have witnessed in this state the service of LMTS, that ran efficiently. We also had a tyre company in this state. Also, we have witnessed a local government embarking on housing estates like what I did in Epe, and I think that Kosofe did the same thing. They don’t have to have the money, it’s a matter of getting the private sector involved and they discuss the modalities. Over the years, there has been Built, Operate and Transfer. There are needs and they must service the needs.
More importantly, there must be reawakening in the local government. In trying to do things, they must first have a development plan and the majority inputs must come from the community. After developing the plans, and vetting them, they still have to go back to the community on what the council has the capacity to do within a year and others spread to subsequent years. Government is not a close thing, no, there must be an open way of communicating with the people and see whether they are satisfied.
THE IMPACT: Sir, let us look at some agencies and arms like the Ministry of Local Government, House of Assembly and the Local Government Service Commission among others. These are bodies created to monitor, supervise and train the staff over the years, why are we still having all these issues about inefficiency in our councils if they are doing their jobs?
Basorun Rotinwa: When I left the Local Government Service, first, I served in the Ministry of Local Government as Permanent Secretary Local Government Service Commission which is specifically designed to recruit officers of the Unified Service. That is from Level 7 and above. We are to train them, but the delivery of services is the responsibility of the local government. Ours is to train and promote them and when they retire, we pay them pensions. But over time, they have politicised the system, whereas, the state government also monitors the local government through the Ministry of Local Government. How do they do this? After preparing their budgets, the local government takes it to the ministry for vetting and get the approval of the governor. They have a spending limit and when they want to do something that is more than their limits, they will go to the ministry. In its supervisory role, the ministry has a unit for supervision that goes around to inspect projects and how money is being spent.
At a point in time, the House of Assembly told them that the local government has elected officials and that no state agency should be superintending over them. They, then, took up the responsibility but they didn’t monitor anything. They were just inviting them to come and defend things through the Auditor – General. In terms of over performing their functions over the local government, I can score the Service Commission very okay. They can be given about 50%. I won’t give the House of Assembly more than 25% and the Ministry of Local Government, maybe another 25%. These are functions that they ought to fight by writing memos to the executive council for discussion. They just kill the local government and the Governor that does not want any trouble with the Assembly just gives blind eyes. At one point, the House of Assembly said that they can remove the Council Chairmen, but Tinubu told them that they cannot because there is an inbuilt system within the local government for the removal of the Chairman, which is through the Councilors. The erosion of the powers of some of these agencies are what caused the confusion that the local government is facing.
THE IMPACT: Recently, the Supreme Court delivered judgment on the local government autonomy, directing that their allocations must be paid directly to them. How do you see this and what are the implications?
Basorun Rotinwa: I think that the governors still have some responsibilities, because the federal government cannot monitor them. They still have to give the governors some powers to superintend over some of their expenditures, and it can only be done through the Ministry of Local Government. When the framework is properly structured, we will still see some of the state agencies monitoring the local government, only that the rights and privileges will be returned to them. We cannot have 57 councils going in different directions. There must be a system to monitor them, so that they will toe the same line for the purpose of developments. I see the Ministry of Local Government coming back full force to monitor and the House of Assembly, may be in an oversight function capacity. The most important thing is that, once they get their rights and privileges back, the Ministry of Local Government in every state must be allowed to monitor the local government, through the office of the Governor to the Presidency. It is not possible for the Presidency to have a department in all the 774 local governments in the federation to monitor them, but that can be done through the states. The House of Assembly can also monitor them through their constituencies. For now, they are not doing it well.
THE IMPACT: The Supreme Court seems to have created some confusion regarding the coming local government elections. For instance in Lagos State, we have 20 Local Governments that are recognized by the constitution and 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) that the Supreme Court said are inchoate. The questions that people are now asking is, will elections be allowed to be held in the LCDAs next year and who will conduct the election between the LASIEC and INEC?
Bashorun Rotinwa: I think that is the headache of the Attorney – General of the State. My guess is that if they return to the Supreme Court judgment, what we would have now is 20 local governments, but we can still achieve our aims by going back to the Wards. What we are now going to have are Ward offices and not governments. We used to have 19 wards and these can be made semi – independent and they will be sending information to the headquarters and whenever there is an important meeting, they will meet at the headquarters. Other than the complicated issue of elections, the allocation can be shared administratively among the 20 councils and the 37 LCDAs. This can be done because we are a one – way system in terms of the ruling party, but once the monopoly is broken, it will not be possible to share the money to the LCDAs. We are only enjoying the convenience that a sole party is incharge. On the other hand, the same constitution allowed for the creation of seven area offices in each of the local governments to be manned by civil servants and not elected officials. What the constitution envisaged with the seven area offices is that, we don’t want any fat structure aside from the main council that will defeat the purpose of the local government creation.
THE IMPACT: How will you rate the one Local Government and five LCDAS in Ikorodu Division?
Basorun Rotinwa: Have they been giving the resources, maybe they would have done better? But other than that, they have not done very well. They are working through a tight rope, even if they have good intentions, the expenditure on the running costs which are the other charges, have subdued them.They have executed the directive to appoint so many hang-ons that they are paying salaries to. At a time when there was serious unemployment, they were directed to appoint temporary staff who are just there doing nothing and collecting salaries. All these have hampered them. Though, some of them are managing the situation by carrying over the expenditures, but they are not doing any quality things. All the roads constructed under the administration of Akin Ambode, have deteriorated. If you go to the Shagamu road that links Sabo – Itamaga road in Ikorodu North, it has completely collapsed. The same thing at Ikorodu West LCDA in that estate and same in Ikorodu LG. They did not deliver a good road. Whatever that is what doing, is worth doing well, the standard must be there since it is for the benefit of our people.
I think that when they are now properly giving their powers, they must re – energize departments in their councils, especially the Works Department. They must have quality people and they must buy equipment so that they don’t have to give repair or palliative works to contractors. These are what they can do with competent hands in the department. This is within the purview of the local government. They should be able to do it.
For our schools and health centres, they must have a good building and maintenance department that will be proactive and respond to situations quickly. That is the essence of the local government. So, we have not even started. What they are enjoying is that those with good knowledge about the government system have almost gone, and those of us that are remaining are ageing. The new generation has no idea, because they were born knowing the wrong thing. You can imagine what someone born in 1999 till date who is about 25 years and those born after them know. This is part of why they are taking advantage of the situation, but unknown to them, there is nobody that will be there forever, and just like us, they will have to retire or leave the stage when the time comes.
My advice is that they must put a lot of things into consideration in implementing local government autonomy. They must streamline political appointments into local government. We don’t need them; it’s just a waste of money. They were getting away with their excesses, because the winner takes all of the chief executive system that we are practicing. There must be limitations, because the same community that you are ruling needs infrastructures. When we were at the local government, we did remedial work over the state and federal roads. Mudashiru (Group Captain Gbolahan Mudashiru, former Military Governor Lagos State) would not even accept such lapses. He would direct that the concerned council must do palliative measures over the road. But now, they are not bothered if the road between Ikorodu and Epe, cuts into two. They will only tell you that it is a federal road.
THE IMPACT: As a chieftain of the Ikorodu Division Resource Development Group (IDRDG), having served as its chairman and that of the Ikorodu Town Hall Management Board (ITHMB), what would you say about the restructuring in the last couple of years, especially after your tenure that led the Group in embarking on developmental projects, and what are your expectations from the present management team?
Bashorun Rotinwa: We thank God that we were there. What informed the reformation is just to emphasise that the town hall is the livewire of the Group. People come to rent the town hall, so, we must continue to upgrade the facilities there to attract more patronage. If that patronage can give us 50% to 70% of the resources that we need, we will not sink. That is very key. The other factor is that we have other agencies like the Ikorodu Division Human Resource Development Board (IDHRDB) which is to look after the educational sector and how to develop our manpower for Ikorodu’s future. Recently, we introduced a computer – based education facility which is also doing very well. Now, our young ones are now being exposed to the digital world and some of the agencies responsible for that have approved the facility. Our people don’t have to go far to use digital facilities, rather, they can now do that with the facility that we have provided. In furtherance of that, Hon. Babajimi Benson is putting up another digital – based centre within the town hall. It is an ongoing project and we will continue to put in more efforts to improve it. There is a lot of work to be done by people who are now willing to join us. What we are doing is to put heads together to give back to the society which has contributed a lot to our lives. We believe that Ikorodu is Oga, and some of us cannot give up on that accolade. Even though the state government is not looking at our way, we want to make it known to them that some of us that are still around will continue to give back and put more pressure on them.
THE IMPACT: Thank you very much for your time, sir.
Basorun Rotinwa: It is a pleasure.
