Rethinking Local Government Administration in Nigeria

This paper examines local governm shift in its discussion and findings. The paper as its objectives tackled the concept of local government, evolution of local government administration in Nigeria, the constitution and local government administration in Nigeria and the controversy over local government autonomy in Nigeria. To achieve this, the paper adopted the use of secondary sources and data mainly from government publications, books, journals, articles, materials from internet, and newspapers. The qualitative approach to data analysis was employed to ascertain the major challenges facing local government administration in Nigeria. From the analysis, it was discovered that apart from the well known financial constraints, the constitution and state governments in Nigeria are the major impediment to effective local government administration in Nigeria. This is based on the fact that both the states and the 1999 constitutional provision have denied the granting of autonomy to local gove which is the major challenge to therefore recommends autonomy to local governments in Nigeria as such will avert the pending doom on our nascent democracy and address every other challenges facing lo government administration in Nigeria. This should be done with full legislative functions granted to the Local Government Legislative Assembly excesses of the executive arm.