ABSTRACT:

The focus of this paper is to reiterate the need for the existence and not scrapping of Local Governments as the third tier of Government in Nigeria. There are presently three levels of governance in the country today. Due to the way Local Governments are being handled by the politicians, especially, the State Chief Executive, Governors and the leadership of political parties, which has made this third tier of Government to be almost irrelevant, a lot of debate is going on concerning whether to scrap the Local Government systems completely and concentrate on the remaining two tiers viz; Federal and State or not. This paper looks into the origin of the local governments as a constitutional creation and examined its sources of funding as well as brought out the special duties statutorily allocated to this third tier, in comparison with the three arms of government – Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary – each working without disturbing the others. Problems with the local government system as currently ran in Nigeria and why they are seemingly ineffective was also expensed. The piece finally submits that since the Local Governments as the statutory third tier of Government in Nigeria is the closest to the people at the grass root, and democracy has been defined as government of the people, by the people and for the people, the arm must rather be strengthened instead of being scrapped.