The Implications of Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations on the Financial Autonomy of Local Governments in Admawa State, Nigeria

The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria as amended provides that every State in Nigeria shall create and maintain a special account where Local Governments funds from Federation account are deposited, including the 10% State’s internally generated revenue. The State is expected to share the revenue among the various Local Governments within her domain for effective service delivery to the grassroots people. This paper sought to evoke information on the effect of State – Local Government Joint Account on the financial autonomy of Local Government Councils in Adamawa State. Data for the study were obtained from both Primary and secondary sources. The study found that the State-Local Government Joint Account operations hinder effective service delivery in Adamawa State. The Fund appropri-ated to Local Government Councils in Adamawa State from the Federation Account was mismanaged by the State Government, through several means which includes illegal deductions, diver-sion and undue engagement of Local Governments into partner-ship projects. The study recommended that, in order to free Lo-cal Governments from such exploitation of the Joint Account system, the constitution has to be reviewed to enable Local Gov-ernments access their allocation directly from the Federation account.