The Politics of Local Government Reforms and Democratic Governance in Nigerian Local Governments

The politics of local government reforms and democratic governance in Nigerian local government system has been an issue of concern to both local government scholars and practitioners, hence the desire for this study. The main objective of the study is to identity the challenging issues in various local government reforms and analyzes their impact on local government democratic governance in Nigeria. The study ex-rayed various local government reforms from the colonial era to the present government in Nigeria. Secondary data was used for the study. The findings proved that the various reforms before 1976 only encouraged local administration, and not local government. The study further showed that it was the 1976 reforms and 1979 constitution that formally brought local government as a third tier of government in Nigeria, although without autonomous political powers. However, since then, the reforms have not encouraged effective democratic governance at the local government due to the unequal relationship between the local government and other tiers of government in Nigeria. We recommend that in future reforms, the powers and functions of the local governments should be clearly defined as politically autonomous third tiers of government in Nigeria to enable the local government achieve effective democratic governance at the local areas. Key Words: Democratic Governance, Politics, Local People, Political Actors, Local Government, Reforms