THE Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees has accused 34 state governments of tampering with local government funds.

NULGE said despite the directive by the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit that state governments should steer clear of allocations belonging to the third tier of government, they (states) had refused to leave LG funds alone.

Findings by Sunday PUNCH showed that the governors had devised a means to manipulate the guidelines by the NFIU and take local government funds.

The NFIU had in May 2019 issued some guidelines to guard against the overbearing influence of the state governments in the administration of local government monthly allocations.

It specifically directed that the States/Local Governments Joint Accounts should be used only for receiving funds and subsequently transferring them to local government accounts.

The guidelines also reduced cash withdrawal from local government accounts to N500,000 daily.

Similarly, it also forbids banks, financial institutions, public officers, and other stakeholders from tampering with local government statutory allocations.


Displeased with the guidelines, the governors made futile efforts to stop the implementation of financial autonomy for LGs.

They wrote the then president, Muhammadu Buhari, accusing NFIU of dabbling into a matter that was beyond its mandate and attempting to ridicule their collective integrity, showing total disregard for the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.

Also, the Nigerian Governors’ Forum sued the FG and NFIU and accused the agency of interfering with state government powers to initiate transactions on local government joint accounts.

The governors lost the case. The presiding judge, Inyang Ekwo, held that the case lacked merit, adding that the essence of the NFIU guidelines was to entrench financial transparency in government transactions at the local level.

The National President of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, Akeem Ambali, in an interview, confirmed Sunday PUNCH’s findings.

He said out of the 36 states in Nigeria, only two states were not guilty of diverting local government funds.

Ambali stated that the governors of the past administrations should have been invited for questioning over LG allocations.

He said Rivers State, under former governor Nyesom Wike, and Jigawa State, under the administration of former governor Badaru Abubakar, didn’t divert LG funds.

He accused the former governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, who doubled as the former chairman of the governors’ forum of frustrating efforts on LG autonomy, adding that Ekiti State under his administration recorded the worst rate of LG fund diversion.

He said, “As of today, apart from two states, Rivers under former governor Wike, and Jigawa under the former governor Badaru, all other states are guilty.

“The most terrible one is a former governor of Ekiti State who also happened to be the then chairman of the governors’ forum; no wonder he argued and fought against the actualisation of local government autonomy.

“Despite the allocation to local governments in terms of the ecological fund, and the regular monthly allocation that has increased tremendously, the impact is not felt by Nigerians, and it ended in individual pockets, “ he added.

But Fayemi had in April 2022, said federalism was a two-tier system comprising the Federal Government and the state government.

“The state government should be at liberty, in my view, to determine the number of administrative units they want to have within their geographic space to know how effective they would be. You have some states where what is most effective is the town’s union,” the former governor said during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.


Also, a former chairman of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, Ekiti State chapter, Kolade Amirekolade, disagreed with the claim that Fayemi starved councils of funds.

Amirekolade said, “Local governments in Ekiti at that time were not starved of funds. They paid us what was coming to the local governments. The payments for salaries of workers of councils and subsidiaries took a chunk of what was coming to the councils. It is not correct to say that Dr Fayemi impeded progress at the local governments or that he did not allow the local governments to function.”

But speaking further, Ambali urged President Bola Tinubu to take measures in securing LG autonomy to ensure grassroots development and tenure security for elected local government officials.

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He said, “The President should as a matter of urgency move toward actualising political autonomy for local government so that tenure security will be guaranteed for local governments, whereby no governor will have the power to sack a democratically elected leadership in the local government.”

Meanwhile, the spokesman of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, Sani Tukur, when contacted, promised to get back to one of our correspondents but had yet to do so as of the time of filing this report.

However, a top source at the NIFU who did not want to be quoted because he was not permitted to grant interviews said the compliance had been massive but stated that the agency was aware that some governors had manipulated the guidelines.

The source said, “What our guideline says is that the money should be released to the account of the local governments, this we have observed is being done.

“We are aware of what the governors do now; they allow the money to be credited into the local government account and they take it from them. They still control this money because many of the local government chairmen are handpicked by them.”

When asked what could be done to check this, the source said, “The danger is that the local government chairmen are taking a big risk because one day, there could be an investigation on the money sent; they might have to account for the money and not their governors.”

Also, speaking in an interview with one of our correspondents, the Chairman, Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria, Abubakar Suleiman, said many local governments had been enjoying the autonomy, promising that the conference would intervene on behalf of those yet to be financially independent.

He said, “Some of the local governments in many states of the country are already enjoying financial autonomy but as lawmakers, we will make sure this time, if there is any state where local governments do not enjoy the autonomy, we will try and work it out for them.”

‘Nasarawa LGs have full autonomy’

Meanwhile, the Nasarawa State Government has denied interfering with funds accruing to the 13 local government areas of the state, which it said had been enjoying full autonomy since 2019 when Governor Abdullahi Sule took over the leadership of the state.

The Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Public Affairs, Peter Ahemba, said, “Everyone in Nasarawa State is aware that since 2019, Governor Sule has not tampered with local government funds. In fact, he has supported them severally with funds to meet up with some of their responsibilities even though they are enjoying full autonomy.

“As a government, we will continue to give our LGAs every necessary support to enable them to pay salaries to workers and embark on projects without any hitches.”

Speaking with one of our correspondents, the Osun State Commissioner for Information, Kolapo Alimi, said Governor Ademola Adeleke’s administration did not spend funds belonging to the local government areas.

Alimi added, “Adeleke is an apostle of local government autonomy. Local government funds under Senator Ademola Adeleke’s administration are not tampered with.

“NULGE members are even in charge of the local governments presently in Osun because we have yet to conduct an election. So, they can attest to the fact that LG funds under this administration are safe.”

An aide of the Sokoto State Governor said the governor was ready to obey all the constitutional processes in the disbursement of local government funds. The aide who spoke with one of our correspondents on condition of anonymity said that the new administration in the state was focused on all the developmental strides of the state.

“I’m sure you know there is no democratically elected chairman in all the local government areas in the state now. Rest assured that every issue affecting local government and their autonomy will be done by him,” the aide added.

However, financial experts said the diversion of funds meant for local governments is a major factor responsible for the lack of socio-economic development at the grassroots.

A German-based economic researcher, Usman Musa, said, “The projects that are earmarked to be done by these local governments would not be done because of the paucity of funds which had hitherto been made available.”

A development economist, Dr Kennedy Uyon, said when funds meant for the LG were diverted by their respective state governments for other projects, or mismanaged outright, it created an avenue for poverty and lack.

“The LG system is near-dead in Nigeria. That was not the original agreement. This issue of the ‘federation account’ has really caused a lot of issues in the system, and this is basically because of the shortcomings of the 1999 Constitution,” Uyon added.

Another economist, David Esiri, the diversion of LG funds by state governors had been the primary cause of the inability of governors to create wealth as many of the governors “resort to diverting these funds to enrich themselves”.

He said, “There need to be constitutional amendments to insulate the local government councils against the states so that they can function as a proper tier of government.”

https://punchng.com/nulge-accuses-34-states-of-diverting-lg-funds/?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=social

So Wike, the slayer of ipob miscreants did not divert state's funds?

Headless mobs will disagree, they will rather fix their heads in Tinubu's rectum, telling us he stole the money for the development of their villages.

While the hunger and inflation continues in the street

Useless fkn organization full of thieves thunder faya NULGE

Why can't people vote in local govt chairman the way we do during the general election. Why allow the state govt to select them. They can never have the full autonomy if the State govt still controls and select them.

LG should be scrapped because they are just god of the land agents feeding fat on scarce resources.