Friday, September 25, 2026
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue State has once again managed to turn a straightforward administrative matter into a constitutional drama.
According to the PDP, Governor Hyacinth Alia’s directive on attendance registers for local government workers amounts to an attack on local government autonomy.
One is tempted to ask, when did asking public servants to account for their presence at work become an assault on the constitution?
Perhaps the PDP would have us believe that local government autonomy means workers can decide when to report for duty, whether to maintain attendance records and whether administrative authorities can demand accountability.
If that is their understanding of autonomy, then the PDP may need to introduce a new chapter into the constitution, “Local Government Autonomy as freedom from Accountability.”
Section 7(1) of the 1999 constitution guarantees the system of democratically elected local government councils, but it also expressly recognises the constitutional role of State Governments in ensuring the existence of local government councils under laws providing for their establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions. So, where exactly did the PDP discover that local government autonomy means the state government must become a stranger to every administrative matter concerning local government?
The PDP has further exposed themselves of what exactly they stand for, bohemians. A political party whose ideology paints them as aimless, nomadic and nonconformist. This explains why during PDP rule in Benue, the state was unfortunately tagged as a place where everything goes.
Otherwise, what has attendance monitoring got to do with financial autonomy? Is keeping an attendance register the same thing as controlling a local government’s bank account? Does asking a worker to report for duty amount to taking over the Council’s finances? By the PDP’s curious logic, perhaps the next time a local government worker signs an attendance sheet, the supreme court will have to be invited to determine whether financial autonomy has been violated.
The local government service commission also exists within this administrative framework. Its statutory responsibilities concerning local government personnel demonstrate that local government administration is not an entirely sealed-off territory where state institutions have no role whatsoever.
The PDP therefore needs to tell Benue people whether it wants the local government service commission to perform its personnel responsibilities or simply exist as a signpost.
The PDP’s declaration that “autonomy means independence” is particularly amusing because even the constitutional framework does not support such an absolute interpretation. Local government autonomy does not mean administrative isolation. It does not mean elected councils and their employees operate beyond every form of lawful regulation. And certainly, it does not mean that public servants become untouchable once they cross the local government boundary.
Governor Alia’s position should therefore be understood within the proper constitutional lane: Local government councils retain their constitutionally recognised functions, while state institutions exercise whatever powers the constitution and applicable state laws confer upon them.
The sensible question is not whether the State can ever have any administrative relationship with Local Governments; the question is whether a particular directive is authorised by the relevant law.
So, rather than shouting “autonomy” at every administrative directive, perhaps the PDP should first read the law they are quoting. Is the directive about Local Government finances? No. Is it an instruction to confiscate local government funds? No. Is it a demand that public servants account for their attendance? Yes. So where, exactly, is the financial-autonomy violation?
The PDP is entitled to disagree with Governor Alia’s policy, but disagreement should not be disguised as constitutional analysis. If accountability in the workplace has suddenly become “despotism,” one can only wonder what the PDP would call a public service where nobody is required to account for attendance, productivity or compliance with service rules.
Governor Alia should continue to operate within the constitution and applicable laws, respect the institutional functions of local government councils while ensuring that lawful State institutions responsible for local government personnel administration perform their duties. That is not an administrative anarchy, it is governance.
The PDP may continue to shout “autonomy,” but slogans do not repeal Section 7 of the constitution, and political rhetoric does not transform an attendance register into a financial transaction.
Local government autonomy is not an administrative anarchy, and an attendance register is certainly not a bank account.
Sir Tersoo Kula, mnipr
Chief Press Secretary to the Governor.
