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The 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the country may be in for a tough time as many primary school teachers and health workers in their employment have signified intention to leave in droves to seek more stable employment in federal, state, and private establishments, thereby putting the future of Nigeria’s third tier of government in jeopardy.
The looming exodus, if not checked, would not only lead to an acute shortage of teachers in public primary schools but also affect the quality of health care in the Primary Health Centres (PHCs) scattered across the country.
The nation’s apex court, the Supreme Court, it would be recalled, had on Thursday, July 11, 2024, ruled that the powers of the government are apportioned into three tiers of government, the federal, the state, and the local government, and that it is unconstitutional for state governors to hold and spend local government funds.
“I hold that the states’ retention of the local government funds is unconstitutional.
“Demands of justice require a progressive interpretation of the law. It is the position of this court that the federation can pay LG allocations to the LGs directly or pay them through the states.
“In this case, since paying them through states has not worked, justice of this case demands that LG allocations from the federation account should, henceforth, be paid directly to the LGs”, the seven-man panel stated in the judgment delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim.
BH checks revealed that the travails of primary school teachers started in 1976 with the local government reform, which transferred the responsibility of managing primary schools to local governments.
With the reform, monthly allocation to local government councils was jerked up from 10 percent to 20.60 percent, and states allocation, which was over 30 percent, was reduced to 26.72 percent; the payment of primary school teachers wages was also moved to the local government councils.
In 1988, the military administration of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, through decree 38, established the National Primary Education Commission (NAPEC), which then set up Local Government Education Authority (LGEA) in each local government area to help facilitate this task.
However, the reform turned out to be a disaster. From the early 80s to 1999, the teaching profession, especially the primary schools arm, which was returned to local governments, became the object of ridicule and laughing stock among many Nigerians, particularly landlords, as LGs workers go for months at a stretch without receiving salaries.
The non-payment of their monthly salaries turned many teachers to beggars and debtors, with many food vendors and landlords refusing to sell or rent out their houses to them for fear of being owed.
Reprieve finally came in 2004 when former president Olusegun Obasanjo enacted the Universal Basic Education Act to ensure the effective running of the nation’s primary schools. The act mandates the three tiers of government to jointly fund and manage primary schools in the country.
For instance, the UBE Act, while empowering the Federal Government through the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), to match the amount each state of the federation and the FCT allocate for primary education with 2 percent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF), free tied up funds hitherto used by states for infrastructural projects for payment of workers salaries.
Though, many teachers in some states of the federation are still owed a backlog of salaries and allowances due to the inability of their state’s Universal Basic Education Commission (SUBEC) to provide their own counterpart funds, the UBE Act to a very large extent resolved the debacle in the education sector.
However, the recent Supreme Court ruling is threatening to upend the relative stability enjoyed by nation’s primary education sector in the last 20 years.
While many Nigerians have applauded the ruling of the apex court as a good development that will aid the growth of the constitutionally recognized 774 local government in the country, workers in the employment of the LGAs, especially primary school teachers and health workers, are now jittery over the risk of mismanagement of LGs funds by officials and possible return to the era, where workers are owed several years salaries and allowances.
Virtually all primary school teachers and health workers in Primary Health Centres (PHCs), while speaking with BH, expressed fears over possible transfer of their salary payment to their local governments authorities.
Nine out of every 10 primary school teachers in Lagos, Osun, Ekiti and Ondo States told BH that they won’t hesitate to exit the system if old trend of non-payment of salaries returns.
Already, about 7 percent of teachers in public primary schools in Lagos and Osun States have transferred their services from SUBEB to states Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM), BH gathered.
One of the lucky teachers, who spoke to our correspondent on the matter, Ebunoluwa Oyelami (not real name), disclosed that she began the transfer process more than three years ago, when the debate over the return of primary schools to LGAs became a vexed issue.
“I was employed by the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Commission (LASUBEB) sometimes in 2014 and was deployed to a primary school in Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos.
“Around 2017 when the Supreme Court started giving judgments upon judgments against states like Lagos, Abia and Oyo in favour of local government autonomy, I became agitated and expressed my fears to an uncle, who is a director in TESCOM during one of our discussions.
“He asked if I would like to cross over from LASUBEB to TESCOM and I replied yes. To my relief and peace of mind, he was able to effect the transfer in July 2021.
“So, when the Supreme Court judgment of July 11 was delivered, I was less concerned. But I pray that fellow teachers will not experience the maltreatment their predecessors passed through in the hands of local government administrators several years back”, Oyelami stated.
While some proactive primary school teachers, representing about 7 percent of respondents interviewed by BH have already transferred their services to state and federal schools (which is much more difficult to pull off), another 80 percent of teachers, who participated in the survey disclosed that they are willing to change employers, with more than half of the respondents admitting that they had already kick-started the process of transferring their services to either the states or federal governments.
The remaining teachers, meanwhile, claimed they are at a loss on what to do to secure their future, and said they have resigned to fate.
While teachers and health workers in the employment of local governments are fretting about their future, BH findings revealed that their fears are not without justification.
Checks revealed that primary school teachers and local health workers constitute about 40 percent of the nation’s total workforce. According to UBEC in its 2022 National Personnel Audit breakdown obtained by BH at the weekend, Nigeria had 47 million students, 171,027 schools, and 1.68 million teachers as of December 2022.
UBEC puts the total number of public schools at 79,775, while private schools currently stand at 91,252.
Further analysis of the report showed that there were 354,651 teachers for 7.2 million students in pre-primary schools; 915,593 teachers for 32 million students in primary schools; and 416,291 teachers for eight million students in junior secondary schools.
The number of registered teachers on the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) database by 2023 was 2.3 million.
Out of the 915,593 teachers in primary schools across the country, at least 600,000 are government teachers.
In Lagos State, for instance, the total number of public workers is about 104,000. While there are 1,101 public primary schools and 683 public secondary schools, in the state, 21,300 teachers serve in primary schools, and 19,500 teachers serve in secondary schools, totaling 40,800. This figure represents about 40 percent of the state’s total workforce.
Teachers employed with NCE start with a N95,000 salary on GL. 7, while degree holders start with a take-home of N118,000 per month.
Using the lowest salary of N95,000 currently earned by an NCE holder as a benchmark for all the 21,300 teachers in Lagos public primary schools, their salaries and allowances alone will gulp the sum of N2.23 billion monthly.
Meanwhile, there are senior officers (teachers) from GL.12 to GL.16, who earn between N200,000 – N400,000, and full directors on Level 17, who earn above N500,000 monthly, as well as other workers in administration and personnel, health, public works, security transportation and accounts with varying wages and allowances running into several billions of naira monthly.
Findings revealed that apart from Lagos, Oyo, Kano, Katsina, and Rivers States, total monthly allocations from the federation account to one LGA in a state rarely surpass the N300 million mark.
According to the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursement reports compiled by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the 774 LGAs in Nigeria received N1.42 trillion as federal allocations in the first five months of 2024.
Though the amount at face value looks huge, but when divided equally amongst the 774 recognized local government councils, each one got a paltry N366 million monthly and N1.83billion in the five months under review.
A further breakdown of the figures shows that the 774 LGAs received N288.93 billion allocation in January; N278.04 billion in February; N267.15 billion in March; N288.69 billion in April and N293.82 billion in May 2024.
The NBS data further showed that the top 20 LGAs that got the biggest allocations in the first five months of 2024 are all from Lagos.
The top 10 revenue earners are Alimosho N9.27 billion; Ajeromi/Ifelodun N7.42 billion; Kosofe N7.33 billion; Mushin N7.24 billion; Oshodi/Isolo N7.21 billion; Ojo N7.14 billion; Ikorodu N7.01 billion; Surulere N6.86 billion; Agege N6.73 billion and Ifako-Ijaye N6.63 billion.
Meanwhile, it should be noted that many LGAs, especially in many states that are largely agrarian and civil service based like Ekiti, Zamfara, Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Zamfara, Kogi and Yobe with no meaningful economic activities often receive below N100 million in FAAC monthly as revenues are shared based on several requirements, especially population size and revenue derivation.
Some financial and public analysts, who spoke on the development argued that unless a concrete arrangement is urgently worked out among the three tiers of government, majority of the 774 LGAs won’t be able to pay workers salaries, not to talk of embarking on infrastructural projects.
“That’s why some of us have been arguing against the creation of more states and local governments. As it it, most states and local governments are not viable, yet some people are demanding the creation of additional ones just for political reasons.
“If the Supreme Court judgment is followed up to the letter, most local governments as presently constituted without financial backbones and adequate IGR to sustain them will soon go bankrupt and start asking for a bailout from the central government”, declared Segun Atobatele, a development economist.
