Dikko Radda was once a local government Chairman of Charanchi local government, under the administration of late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua, when he was the Governor of Katsina state, and therefore appreciates comprehensively, the challenges faced by the day to day running of local government administrations. With the recent Supreme Court judgement on local government autonomy, Dr. Dikko Radda, the Governor of Katsina State, has put in place a committee, comprising state, local government, and state assembly representatives and other experts, to fine tune the adoption and implementation of the autonomy judgement by Katsina State. Governor Radda is the 1st and only Governor of Katsina state, that has not dissolved elected local government councils to form caretaker committees in their recent democratic history. Katsina State is likely the only state to transition from one democratically elected local government councils to another. Long before the Supreme Court judgement, the ruling APC in Katsina State had conducted their primary elections and all has been set for the conduct of their local government elections.
On the 4th of July, 2024, Gov. Radda had called for a meeting of all 34 local govt chairmen and their directors of finance and admin, to discuss the Community Development Plan, CDP, which was designed to empower local govts from the ward level, by going directly to communities to get information about their core areas of need and their priorities. This was to be done by establishing a community centre in every ward, which shall host a community development office for socio-economic development, a community support office for lives and livelihoods support to the vulnerable, and a community learning centre to advance academic and moral knowledge in the communities. This is to be run by a joint planning committee between the state and local govt, and a program steering committee chaired by the governor, which would be comprised by crucial implementing ministries. Dr. Radda says the idea here is that governance would be more efficient and effective if communities tell the govt what they need. The Governor’s vision goes beyond local government autonomy. His plans are geared towards community level autonomy.
Katsina State government, under the leadership of Dr. Dikko Radda has always worked as partners with local government councils, to implement policies and projects across the State and the local governments, with a guided approach to budgeted items, with the supervision of the State assembly. Local councils have always expended their allocations directly on salaries, pensions and gratuities, security items, and running costs among others. The state government in collaboration with the local councils have worked hard in fighting insecurity in the State, concentrating on front line councils that have been most afflicted by the operations of the bandits. Together they have jointly established the Katsina State Community Watch Corps which has been quite instrumental in fighting insecurity to a reduced minimum especially in the most affected local councils. Already, staff from local councils are being trained in community centres on global standards to community development. The Supreme Court judgement has jettisoned the joint account between local and state governments. Dr. Radda’s committee would have a holistic review of how this affects so many joint intervention programs such as salaries of SUBEB teachers, primary healthcare facilities, and various loan based projects, funded by multilateral organisations like the world bank, African Development Bank, and the Islamic Development Bank. All these have perhaps new implications on structure and repayment, due to the new judgement.
Dr. Radda’s government is embarking on fully functional local government administration. One of his campaign promises was to transform the College of Administration in Funtua to focus exclusively on local government administration and make it a premier destination for training local council staff in the country. He is determined to build the capacity of administrative mechanisms of local councils, including digital tools, to make local govts more transparent and effective. Dr. Radda does not believe that the local govt autonomy is an excuse for governors to shy away from their primary responsibilities in the states, providing accountability and development across the entire state. He insists that monitoring and evaluation are key to the success of the local government autonomy. He has also re-iterated that he is not interested in withholding the funds of any local council in his State. As former chairman, he knows and understands the challenges and benefits of local council development in the scheme of activities that bring about development in the State. His experience is coming to play here, and his choice as governor by the good people of Katsina state is really paying off. Local councils have always enjoyed their autonomy under his administration and would continue to do so he says.
