What Your Councillor Actually Does — And How to Hold Them to It
Nigeria’s 8,800+ ward councillors control the government tier closest to your daily life. Most citizens cannot name theirs. Here is the job description, and the scorecard.
Between you and the President sit two tiers of government, and the closest one — the local government council — is the one with power over your market, your clinic, your primary school and the road outside your gate. The councillor representing your ward sits in its legislative arm.
The actual job
Make bye-laws for the local government area
Approve and scrutinise the LGA budget — every naira of it
Represent ward interests in council deliberations
Hold the chairman and supervisors to account through questions and committees
Notice what is not on the list: personally grading roads or donating transformers. Councillors who campaign on gifts are running from the actual job, which is oversight.
The scorecard method
On Nject, every councillor profile carries a public ledger: motions raised, meetings attended, budget questions asked, and responses to citizen bells. Three questions a quarter is all it takes to populate it. Ask in public, log the answer, and the record builds itself.
We stopped asking for favours and started asking for minutes of the meeting. Everything changed after that.
— Chidinma E., ward resident, Enugu