AbstractFinancial viability has been presented officially as crucial to the success of the sweeping reforms of local government in Nigeria and this article reviews the situation facing the new local government councils four years after the reforms were instituted. It sets the present situation against a background of past trends in which local government was financially dependent on regional and state governments, and subjected to increasingly detailed controls. Reviewing the present continuing dependence on state and federal government for finance, the limited use made of independent revenue bases, and the political and administrative factors militating against financial viability, the article argues that local government cannot escape from the vicious circle of underdevelopment.