By Henry Ojelu

Legal practitioner and policy analyst, Dr. Monday Ubani, SAN, has warned that Nigeria’s persistent insecurity will remain unresolved unless the Federal Government confronts what he calls the most neglected pillar of national safety — a functional and fully empowered local government system.

Ubani said despite decades of investment in military operations, counter-terrorism campaigns, recruitment drives and surveillance technologies, the country continues to witness rising kidnappings, banditry and violent community attacks because the tier of government constitutionally positioned to act as the first responder remains politically weakened and financially crippled.

Reacting to Nigeria’s latest security crisis, he noted that the Federal Government’s recent National Emergency on Insecurity, unveiled by President Bola Tinubu, again omitted the most crucial reform: restoring capacity and autonomy to local governments. The package includes recruiting more security personnel and withdrawing police protection from VIPs, but Ubani insists these steps cannot succeed without fixing grassroots governance.

He argued that security threats do not begin in Abuja or state capitals but in communities, rural settlements and neglected neighbourhoods. Since these areas fall under local government jurisdiction, Ubani said councils are constitutionally designed to detect early threats, mobilise community responses and support policing efforts. Yet, they have been systematically stripped of this capacity.

According to him, the State Joint Local Government Account and other political controls have allowed state governments to seize council funds, impose loyalists and undermine independent administration.

 Many local councils, he said, now function as extensions of state executives rather than as frontline governance institutions.

Ubani warned that a local government unable to maintain rural roads for patrols, provide street lighting, support vigilante structures, empower traditional authorities or fund surveillance tools is a council rendered ineffective in protecting its population.

This vacuum, he added, has created ungoverned spaces where bandits flourish and kidnappers operate freely.

He noted that national debates consistently centre on state police, youth employment, military expansion, rural education reforms and economic interventions, while the foundational need for effective local government administration is repeatedly ignored.

“No matter how many security personnel are recruited, or how advanced our surveillance equipment becomes, no national strategy can succeed when communities remain abandoned and disconnected from governance,” he said.

Ubani described full constitutional and financial autonomy for local governments as the most urgent reform needed to stem insecurity at its roots.

He commended the attempt by the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, to seek Supreme Court clarity on the issue, but lamented that political interference frustrated the initiative.

Calling on President Tinubu to act decisively, he said direct funding and unrestricted autonomy for local councils must now be treated as a national priority.

“The path to a safer Nigeria begins with strengthening the tier of government closest to the people,” Ubani stated. “Non-functional local government administration breeds insecurity. The sooner we confront this truth, the sooner Nigeria can make real progress.”

The post Ubani to FG: No security breakthrough with LG autonomy appeared first on Vanguard News.