Top policymakers, academics and members of civil society will gather in Abuja on Tuesday to deliberate on how to improve the performance and relevance of Nigeria’s 774 local councils, with Wale Edun, the country’s coordinating minister of the economy and minister of finance, scheduled to deliver the keynote address.
Convened by Agora Policy, a Nigerian think tank, the policy conversation is designed to review the implementation of Supreme Court’s judgment on financial autonomy to the LGAs one year after the ruling.
The judgement, which also mandated that the LGAs should be run by elected officials, was delivered by the Supreme Court on 11th July 2024 in a case instituted by the Federal Government.
“One year is a good time to take stock and to start thinking about far-reaching reforms aimed at ensuring that our local councils are well positioned to discharge their constitutional responsibilities and meet the expectations and needs of our citizens,” says Waziri Adio, the founder of Agora Policy.
The policy conversation is supported by MacArthur Foundation and is organised by Agora Policy in partnership with the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC), The Cable Newspapers, and the Centre for Fiscal Transparency and Public Integrity (CFTPI).
Apart from Edun, other guest speakers expected at the event include: Dr. Kole Shettima of MacArthur Foundation, Professor Diana Mitlin, the CEO of ACRC, Professor Remi Aiyede of the University of Ibadan, Deborah Isser of the World Bank, Cynthia Rowe of the British High Commission, and Ojobo Atuluku, the chair of Agora Policy.
The event will also feature a panel session to dissect the progress and challenges with the implementation of the Supreme Court ruling and to provide pathways for more effective, responsive and accountable local administration in the country.
The panellists are: Hon. Lawal Yandaki, the national president of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON); Akintunde Oyebode, the chairman of the Forum of Finance Commissioner and the Commissioner for Finance and Economic Development in Ekiti State; Hajia Saudatu Mahdi, the secretary general of Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA); Samson Itodo, the executive director of Yiaga Africa; and Dr. Umar Yakubu, the executive director of CFTPI.
The panel will be moderated by Nancy Illoh-Nnaji, the host of ‘Moneyline with Nancy,’ a television programme.
The overall goal is to get critical stakeholders to focus on the imperative of roots and branch reforms at the local level and how to make them happen. This is the second policy conversation by Agora Policy on local government reforms. Supported by MacArthur Foundation and organised in partnership with five other civil society organisations, the first conversation was held on 5th August 2024, less than a month after the Supreme Court ruling. The theme of the event was: ‘Enthroning Accountability in Local Governance in Nigeria.’
Agora Policy has also commissioned and published two policy papers on how to deepen local governance and local democracy in the country. The papers were: ‘Beyond Financial Autonomy—the Imperative of Moving from Local Government to Local Governance in Nigeria’, published on 9th August 2024; and ‘Why Credible Elections Matter for the Revival of Local Democracy in Nigeria,’ published on 27th April 2025. Both papers were written by Professor Remi Aiyede, a professor of political institutions, governance and public policy at the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan. During the Tuesday event, Prof Aiyede will set the scene for the event and the panel session. He will speak on ‘Reflections on Five Decades of Local Government Reforms in Nigeria.’
