An appraisal of the performance of the 5th republic third tier legislature in Nigeria

Abstract

The third tier of government in Nigeria, most times referred to as Local Government, is basically a government structure that provides administration at the local or grass root level. This presupposes the existence of other levels of governance; and in Nigeria, the federal and state governments readily come to mind as the first and second tier of government respectively. The introduction of this third tier of government was intended to bring government and the benefits of governance closer to the people. Having concluded recently the 5th Republic, the purpose of this paper is to examine the performance of the third tier of government in this dispensation. The paper does an overview of its strengths and weakness, with the intention to recommending to the 6th Republic Third Tier Legislation, a better way forward. In doing this, this paper becomes very relevant to governance and performance tracking in governance. The methodology we adopt is the doctrinal research approach.

Key words: Third Tier, Legislature, Performance, governance, roles and responsibilities.