(A story of power withheld and silence sold)
In a true federation, the local government is the people’s heartbeat — a house close enough to hear their needs and strong enough to answer them.
But across the South East, that house has no walls. It’s a name on a signboard, a gate that opens to idle offices, and workers who await instructions from faraway capitals.
Everywhere — from Nnewi to Ngor Okpala, Nsukka to Afikpo, Aba to Awgu — the story is the same: local governments that exist only on paper.
Caretaker chairmen sit in offices they were never elected to occupy. Council budgets are ghost documents; internally generated revenues from markets, parks, and motor unions vanish into untraceable channels.
Yet, these councils still receive federal allocations — billions every month — routed through state governments who decide what to release, when to release it, and to whom. No public ledger, no audited reports, no visible community projects.
The biggest argument against local government autonomy has always been fear: “They will steal the money.”
But that fear has become a cover for something worse — a system where opacity thrives under the supervision of the powerful.
The truth is simple: corruption doesn’t vanish when you withhold power; it only relocates to a higher office.
In places where local governments work — even modestly — democracy has a face. Roads are patched, schools are maintained, and people know the name of the man they elected to fix things.
In the South East, citizens know their town union president better than their local government chairman — because the latter is often appointed, not chosen.
From Enugu’s “transition caretakers” to Imo’s “interim management committees,” from Abia’s “mayor-style” administrators to Anambra’s “handpicked executives,” the story doesn’t change — only the title does.
Five states, one pattern: democracy replaced by convenience.
If the next generation of South East governors truly seek legacy, the restoration of functional, elected, and accountable local governments is the place to start.
Let the councils breathe again. Let revenues be published. Let chairmen be chosen, not selected.
Because the best gift to the South East is not another flyover, nor another political slogan —It is the return of power to where it belongs: the people’s doorstep.
By Linus Anagboso.
