Abstract

Of recent, Local Government or what is known in some other countries as Mayor is – and for the first time – attracting global attention over impeachment process and its attendant theatrics. Beginning with the Mayor of Toronto who for more than one week entertained the world on Cable Network News (CNN); to the Mayor of Kampala in Uganda; Mayor of Bogota in Colombia; and the countless number of impeached Local Government Chairmen in Nigeria, the stories are the same. Reactions are also the same across the globe; first, for the Mayors themselves, second, for their supporters and, thirdly, for other extraneous factors in the impeachment process. In all of these countries, there are deep involvements of central as well as provincial governments in the impeachments of Mayors for one reason or the other leading to series of theatrics that entertain not just the local, national and the general publics in particular but global audience in general. This paper intends to use Nigeria as a case study of not just how Federal and Provincial governments as well as other godfathers interfere with affairs of Local governments and thus render their (Mayors’) autonomies useless against the wish of the Constitutions or Charters, as the case may be, that set them up.

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