- N15.5 trillion of LGA allocation diverted in 12 years
- Governors are threat to democracy, say activists
These days a flood of tears, agony and frustration are the lot of an average local council chairman whose allocation from the Federation Account have been diverted by governors with impunity across states in the country. The once robust and operational local councils are now mere glorified secretariats, with no activity going on.
Local government independence has been louder in recent times considering how this tier of government has become subservient to state governors who milk them like cows.
It was the former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2022 who hit the nail on the head that majority of governors were diverting the funds supposed to go to local government for development.
Buhari did not mince words during his speech at an event hosted for members of the Senior Executive Course 44 (2022) of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
According to him it was unfathomable that some state governors would collect money on behalf of council areas, and only remit half of such allotment to the council chairpersons.
“If the monies from the federal government to state governments is N100 million, N50 million will be sent to the chairman with a letter that he will sign that he received N100 million,” he cried out
“The governor will pocket the balance and share it with whoever he wanted to. If the chairmen of the local government say how much he must pay as salaries, monies for the salaries will be given and the balance he will put in his pocket. To hell goes development.”
Not done yet, the former President lamented: “This is Nigeria, it’s a terrible thing, you cannot say the person, who was doing these was educated. He was a qualified lawyer, he was experienced, yet he participated in this type of corruption.”
When Buhari said this, a few governors claimed exception why majority kept mute. However, revelations today have shown that the former president knew what he was saying.
In April, 2022, the former chair person of Ado Ekiti Local Government area of Ekiti State, Mrs. Omotunde Fajuyi, alleged that the former government in the state, diverted the money meant for the council elsewhere.
According to Fajuyi while featuring on a radio programme in Ado-Ekiti, the highest monthly allocation she got as chairperson of the local government area was N4.5 million despite signing for over N100 million
She also denied ever collecting N200 million as monthly allocations as said by some people on social media.
“Sometimes, the Fayemi government will give us N2 million, N3 million monthly; the highest I received was N7 million and that was after the government created Local Council Development Area (LCDA) while N2.5 million was given to the LCDA. So, what I actually got was N4.5m,” she said
Fajuyi lamented that despite the fact that some of the chairmen were patriotic and ready to help their communities, their hands were tied due to diversion of their legitimate allocation by governors.
“So which road could we have done with this? Remember it was a few days that I got into office that I completed the council secretariat with the belief that they would help us tar the road. They only promised to do that but failed to do it despite removing millions from our allocation to repair the road.”
The recent outburst of the chairman of Ijebu East Local Government area of Ogun State, Wale Adedayo, who alleged that the council funds in the state had been diverted by Governor Dapo Abiodun, has again brought to the front burner how and why the governors throughout the country are milking councils dry.
Adedayo, in a letter written to former Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, alleged that over N10.8bn fund of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme was also diverted by the governor.
The LG boss claimed that the 10 per cent of the state’s Internally Generated Revenue, which the constitution also stipulated should go to the local government, has not been given since Abiodun reportedly got into office.
While attributing the diversion of funds as a key reason the All Progressives Congress lost some of the councils in the last general election, Adebayo urged Osoba to convince Governor Dapo Abiodun to allow the Federal statutory allocation to reach each of the councils.
According to him, the trend of denying local governments their due Federal Allocations in the State began during the administration of former governor Ibikunle Amosun.
The chairman pointed out that “This letter should have been written about two years ago. But I was wary of what many naive people would say about me. Besides, at your age and given the level of your selfless contributions to the development of our state, and Nigeria in general, we expect you to be taking a well-deserved rest at this time.
“Your urgent intervention is sorely needed to convince the Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun that the statutory Federal Allocation to Local Governments in Ogun State should be allowed to reach each of them as envisaged by the 1999 Constitution. Since we (Ogun State Local Government Chairmen) got on board in 2021, there has been Zero Federal Allocation to each local government. The 10% of the state’s Internally Generated Revenue, which the Constitution also stipulated should go to the local government, has not been given since Abiodun got into office.
But the Ogun State Government faulted claims that the Abiodun administration diverted allocations accrued to local government areas in the state.
The governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Lekan Adeniran, said contrary to reports, the administration had often augmented funds allocated to councils in the state from the Federation Account to help them to meet their obligations.He said the government never tampered with local government funds.
According to Adeniran, funds meant for local governments in the state are handled by the constitutionally recognised Joint Account and Allocation Committee.
“Between May 2023, when the governor was sworn in for the second term and July 2023, the JAAC shared among 20 local governments N4.531bn, N4.444bn and N4.497bn respectively on first line charges and just last week N5.2bn was shared among the local governments for the month of August,” the statement said.
The JAAC, according to the statement, comprises major stakeholders in local government administration, including the Chief Economic Adviser to the governor, Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Accountant General of the State, Permanent Secretary, Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, all 20 local government chairmen, one representative from each of the four Traditional Councils in the state, representative of SUBEB, NULGE, local govt pensioners, retired primary school teachers, Local Government Service Commission, Local Government Pension Commission and NUT.
“It has the mandate to meet every month to ensure that allocations to local governments are discussed and properly presented for fund allocation. At such meetings, the state government makes full disclosure of the receipt from the federation account.
“First-line charges, including local government staff salaries and pensions; primary school teachers’ salaries and pensions; healthcare workers’ salaries and pensions and emoluments for traditional rulers are tabled for discussion and fund allocation at the JAAC meetings,” the statement added.
The governor’s spokesperson added that the same pattern has been followed since Abiodun took over the leadership of the state in 2019.
Since Adedayo’s letter became public, a lot has happened in the state, aside the fact that he was detained for two days by the State Security Service while interrogating him, he was suspended by the governor and a chain of other events followed – leading to his ouster from office by impeachment.
The Genesis
The Nigerian constitution provides for funding of Local Government from three main sources: Allocation from the Federal Account, the 10% proportion of the monthly state Government internally generated revenue and the internally Generated revenue of the Local Government, unfortunately the Local Governments continue to record setbacks towards the development of the grassroots.
The reasons for this are not far-fetched. Investigation by the Nation revealed that 17 states government are running their council with caretaker committees amounting to 323 out of the 774 local council in the country. The implication of this is that peanuts are doled out to these caretaker committees’ members on monthly bases and the accrued local council allocations from Abuja are pocketed by the governors with impunity.
In order to reduce the avarice of governors, the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, during Buhari era issued a guideline to reduce vulnerabilities created by cash withdrawals from local government funds throughout the country. These guidelines, amongst other things, seek to systematically restore council’s financial autonomy, ensure funds go directly to the council accounts.
Unfortunately the governors frustrated the efforts under the ageis of governor’s forum. The 36 governors approached Buhari on the actions taken by the NFIU, which they accused of dabbling into a matter that was “beyond its mandate”.
The former Chairman of the NGF, who was also the Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, was said to have signed and sent a letter to the President on behalf of his colleagues.
In the letter, the governors expressed dismay and anger at the NFIU’s “brazen attempt to ridicule” their collective integrity and “show total disregard for the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) as amended.”
The NGF argued that local government councils were not financial institutions, but creations of the Constitution. The governors added that they are not reporting entities and therefore, not under the NFIU in the manner contemplated by the latter’s so-called guidelines.
The governors, therefore, contended that the NFIU should comply with “those standards on combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism and its proliferation as stipulated and not dabble into matters that are both constitutional and beyond NFIU purview.”
However if the NGF’s excuse was considered, it can be contrary to the provision of Section 7 of the Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution, which states that the system of local government by democratically elected local government council is guaranteed and accordingly, the government of every state shall ensure their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils. Notwithstanding the governors have their ways and the local councils were at their beck and call.
The reality
The Nation’s investigation at the National Bureau of Statistics and the office of the Account-General of the federation revealed that about N15.5 trillion (N15,505,489,701,816) were duly transferred to states on behalf of the 774 local governments between 2007-2019 yet there is no public information on what portion of that 15.5 trillion, each local government received.
The general notion about federal allocation is that aside from population factor, 13% derivation, a concession given to oil-producing states, determine how much more a state and its local government get compared to counterparts
Table A above indicates the first twenty local governments that received the highest allocation from the federation account in ascending order while table B shows the list of the council with least allocation in descending order out of the 774 local governments in the federation.
With the above data, the least local council collecting an average of N12.7billion and the highest council with N56.3billion for 12 years, it’s obvious that development and grassroots governance have eluded the majority of the councils and the once bubbling third tier of government remains a mere window dressing.
There has been controversy about the moral standing of state governments to receive and manage LGA allocations from Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC). The FAAC makes transfers of the statutory allocation of local governments to their respective state governments. This is in accordance with the 1999 constitution of Nigeria which established the FAAC and the Joint Allocation and Accounts Committee (JAAC) for the pooling and distribution of Local Government Revenue among state and local governments.
Unfortunately investigation by the Nation revealed that majority of the council chairmen signed for the money they never collected while the rest funds were diverted by the governors with impunity.
Violation of the Constitutions by the governors
It’s very glaring that Section 162 (6), (7) and (8) of the 1999 Constitution offered some directions as to the legality of the state government to withhold or deduct from the local government share of the Federal allocation.
(6) Each State shall maintain a special account to be called “State Joint Local Government Account” into which shall be paid allocations to the local government councils of the state from the Federation Account and from the government of the state.
(7) Each State shall pay to local government councils in its area of jurisdiction such proportion of its total revenue on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the National Assembly.
(8) “The amount standing to the credit of local government councils of a state shall be distributed among the local government councils of that state and in such manner as may be prescribed by the House of Assembly of the State.
While speaking to The Nation on the issue, a lecturer at the Department of Political Science at the National Open University, Comrade Abdul-Rahoof Bello lamented that the governors are threat to democracy because of their disobedience to the constitution of the country.
According to him: “The governors in Nigeria are not elected governors but the royal majesty hiding under democracy. They are benevolent emperor. They are too much powerful even more than America President. The constitution is to be blame for making the governors so powerful
He argued that since the governors have executive power bestowed on them by the constitution and at the same time the leader of the party in their respective states, then anything can go.
“It is an open secret that most of the governors are diverting the local government fund through joint account operation. It’s a pathetic situation that we find ourselves despite the executive order signed to law for the amendment of that section of the constitution that local government fund should go directly to the council, but the governors frustrated this application.”
He regretted that “Some of the governors refused to conduct local government election in their state thereby making sure that their stooge are put in place as care taker committee thereby diverting the fund dew for this council into their use. They operate this illegal body so that they will continue to milk the local government.
“That was why the former president, Muhammadu Buhari called them thieves and only few of them denied the allegation why majority kept mute. For a sitting president to call the governors thieves you can imagine the level of atrocity committed.
“Democracy as of today is under threat and in chain; we no longer have federalism under these governors. Local government autonomy is a law that we must allow to work either these governors like it or not.
In his own view, a legal icon and human right activist, Mr. Monday Ubani, heaped the blame on the constitution that created Joint Account and gave the governors a blank cheque to divert the local government fund.
Ubani noted that “the governors have upper hand on the fund because in most cases the council chairmen are appointed by the governors and most of them are at their mercy. Some of them did not even care to conduct an election but put care taker committee there and he who owns the pipe dictates the tune.”He declared: “There is no administration at the local council because the money has been taken away by the governors. This state of insecurity we are all crying about, if there is effective administration at the 774 local government’s area in the country we will not witness all these insecurity we are all experiencing now. The chairman with the money that supposed to be in their care could have manned their territories well and things could have been better”
The National Spokesperson, Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) Comrade Mark Adebayo in his view pointed accusing finger to the governors who deliberately crippled local government finance at the expense of their own selfish desires
According to him, the local government is the closest to the people at the grassroots and deserves to have its fiscal independence guaranteed from the state governments but the governors wouldn’t allow the LGs to breathe.
“It is a big threat to our democracy and the operationalisation of constitutional federalism. The state governors treat local council funds as their pocket monies but that’s outright stealing,” he said.
Way Forward
Former ALGON chairman in Oyo State, Hon. Moses Olayiwola, argued that as long as the present situation between the governors and council chairmen exist, the country is postponing an evil day
“There is nobody in this country either in government or not who did not know that the local government is being cheated by the governors, therefore , the president should have the political will to invoke executive order to compel the strapping of joint account and let the council have its funds directly.”
Adebayo pointed out that there was no other way out but to compel governors to let autonomy of local governments be sacrosanct.
While speaking to The Nation, chairman of Conference 57 in Lagos State and present ALGON President, Hon. Kolade Alabi, pointed out that Lagos has been enjoining fiscal autonomy from the days when the current president, Bola Tinubu, was governor of Lagos State.
“All the Lagos council are performing because the governor let us bring governance to the door step of the people. Asiwaju knew that the best way to get to the people is to have bottom approach to governance. He started the devolution of power when he was the governor of Lagos and that is why you can see rapid development at the grassroots in the State,” Alabi noted.
“Tinubu started the devolution of power when he was the governor of Lagos and that is why you can see rapid development at the grassroots. We have a lot of testimonies at the grassroots. Two years back we had 140 roads across all the local council across the 57 council in Lagos State. Again we have 180 road projects delivered across the state with precision recently.”
The big question is how many councils in the entire 774 across the country can beat their chest like that of Lagos aside from grandstanding , intimidation and impunity by majority of the governors – who have suddenly turned ’emperors’ in cause of serving the people which democracy entails.
