Funds and federal allocations sent to Local Governments in the country are disappearing as there is no evidence of the impact of these funds in the lives of people across the country, the former Minister of Agriculture, and one time National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Audu Ogbeh, has said.
The notable politician, who said this in an interview on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande on Channels TV on Friday, as a result, urged the Federal Government to stop the payment of monthly allocations to states whose governors have set up caretaker committees for the Local Governments.
According to him, “I can’t be sending you money that disappears. You don’t repair primary schools, you don’t do anything, the money vanishes and they say they are paying workers, for which work? Strolling around in the morning and drinking palm wine? These are the issues. Those failures are creating dangerous problems for the country.”
He continued: “Any governor who sets up a caretaker committee should not receive any funds because a caretaker is illegal, according to the Supreme Court. Don’t send them cash, deduct their own allocations and keep it,” the 76-year-old ex-minister said on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme aired on Channels Television on Friday.
He said that the efficiency of the 774 local government areas in the country that constitute the third tier of government has been hampered by the weight of control by the overbearing governors who have been accused of mismanaging the funds meant for the administration of these local governments.
In the last few months, calls for local government autonomy have increased in Nigeria. President Bola Tinubu has also supported the calls and in May the Federal Government sued the 36 state governors over alleged mismanagement of local government funds.
Currently, the Federal Government gets 52.68% of federal revenue, and states get 26.72%. In comparison, the LGs get 20.60% of the country’s monthly revenue allocated by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) which operates under the Presidency. The funds are disbursed by the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).
Interestingly, LG funds are paid into a joint account operated by state governments and local governments which are almost always controlled by the state governors.
‘Non-Functional LGs Creating Problems’
Ogbeh, a former National Chairman of the PDP, said the Federal Government should discontinue the payment of LG funds to such joint accounts and move it to accounts solely operated by local government administrations.
He said some governors appoint their stooges as caretaker chairmen of local government, give them stipends and divert large chunks of the money allocated to local government administrations to questionable quarters.
The Nigerian agriculture minister from 2015 to 2019 backed the move by the Federal Government through the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi, to restore financial and legislative autonomy to local governments in the country.
He said the President and the 36 state governors should sit down and decide what they want to do with local governments.
The Benue-born politician said should the LG system be functional, many prevalent social and environmental challenges in the country won’t be experienced.
“Here you have a system which unfortunately is not working. If it were working, a lot of these problems would not be there. You have a governor in the state and there are 10, 15 local governments, and the local government is failing,” he said.
He said governors ought to see local governments as partners in progress for the overall development of the people, especially in providing potable water for people and curbing the spread of infectious diseases like Cholera, repairing dilapidated primary and secondary schools’ classrooms, storing drugs at healthcare centres in their domains, and providing other basic amenities for the comfort of the people.
‘Scrap It’
The ex-minister said the LG system should be scrapped if governors won’t allow it to function the way it ought to.
“What I want to say to Nigerians, if we don’t want the local government system, scrap it, if it were allowed to work, it would have been a fantastic system,” he said.
He said governors are building anger and frustration among the people at the grassroots through the arbitrary dissolution of constitutionally elected LG chairmen and the imposition of caretaker chairmen.
