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The narrative above is replicated across the 774 local governments in Nigeria. The Supreme Court judgment on Local Government financial autonomy remains iced over in practice. State governors continue to treat local councils as administrative subsidiaries rather than an autonomous arm of government.
A Certified True Copy (CTC) is an officially certified duplicate of an original document kept in court records or government custody. In Nigeria, CTCs are commonly required for court appeals, land matters, visa applications, verification processes and legal transactions involving public documents.
Charing Cross Hospital sits in that peculiar West London sweet spot where the average house price has long since waved goodbye to the million-pound mark and is now busy collecting gold medals in the “how high can we go” Olympics. The surrounding streets are a parade of desirable postcodes, glossy estate agent boards, and the quiet confidence of people who regard a £1.2 million two-bed as a “starter home” if you squint hard enough and ignore the service charge.
There is an old British habit that refuses to die. When the public finances look awkward, someone reaches for the national costume box, pulls out the Union Jack, and declares that the only patriotic course is to ask the people with the least to tighten their belts a little more. The word of the hour is always “austerity.” The justification is always necessity. The result is almost always the same.
There is an old British political habit which deserves rather more scrutiny than it usually receives: when governments want the public to accept an uncomfortable policy, they wrap it in the Union Jack and call it national security.
