Local Government Training in the Western Region of Nigeria
| Author | P. Dyson |
| Published date | 01 October 1959 |
| Date | 01 October 1959 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1959.tb00143.x |
Local
Government
Training in
the
Western
Region
of
Nigeria
by P.
DYSON,
Administrative
Officer,
Western
Nigeria
Introduction
THE purpose of this article is to describe
the
development of special training
courses for local
government
administrative
and
treasury
staff
during
the
past
seven years,
and
to
point
out
some of
the
difficulties
that
have
been
experienced.
It
is
not
proposed to discuss
the
training given to such employees, while in
service
with
their councils, by their superior officers
and
by administrative
officers in
the
field.
Training
of
the
latter
type has,
of
course, been given for
many
years
and
will continue to be
of
the utmost importance.
The
need
for a
special
training
programme
A
more
concentrated effort to
train
local government
staff
became necessary
after
the
introduction
of
the
Local Government
Law
of
1952,
which
provided
for
the
abolition
of
Native Authorities
and
the
establishment
of
elected
autho-
rities organised on a
'tier'
system.
One
immediate result
of
the
application
of
the
new law was
the
establishment
of
many
more
councils
than
had
existed
under
the
Native
Authority
Ordinance
(92 native authorities were replaced
by 226 divisional
and
district councils).
These
were required to
operate
a
much
more
complicated system
of
local
government
under
which each
individual council
had
its
own
particular
functions
and
relationships
with
other
authorities.
The
Region was therefore faced
with
the
problem
of
intro-
ducing
a new system
of
local government,
and
also
of
recruiting
and
training
staff for
the
many
new authorities which were being established.
The
staffing
problem
was
aggravated
by
the
fact
that
the
educational qualifications
and
standard
of efficiency
of
the
native
authority
employees were very low, so
that
it
was necessary to engage persons
with
no previous experience
and
to
train
them
ab initio. Afurther reason
why
a special training
programme
was
required
was
that
while
under
the
native
authority
system there
had
been
no
standardized
accounting system or
procedure
for dealing
with
establishment matters,
the
new law was soon followed by financial
memoranda
(running
into
36 chapters),
staff regulations (199 sections) plus electoral regulations (127 sections) with
which local
government
officials were expected to be conversant. Similar
developments
had
been taking place in
the
Eastern Region
and
in 1952
the
two governments decided
that
the
only solution to
the
problem
was to provide
special training facilities,
and
it was agreed
that
ajoint
course should be estab-
lished for students from
both
Regions.
The nine
months'
training
course
The
original
training
course provided
by
the
two governments assembled
in April, 1953,
and
was conducted in
Ibadan
under
the
auspices
of
the
depart-
ment
of
extra
mural
studies
of
the
University College.
The
course, which was
residential, lasted for
one
academic
year
and
was designed to
train
officials
to a
standard
high enough to
enable
them
to serve as secretaries or treasurers
to
the
middle-sized authorities.
Twenty
places were available for each Region
193
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