By Maiwada Dammalam

An advertorial published by Daily Trust (12/7/15) which laboured to prove a perceived illegality committed by Katsina State Government for dissolving Local Government Councils if anything, only proved a serious deficit in understanding the extant laws regulating democracy in Nigeria particularly, Local Government administration. Much as the recent dissolution of Councils in Katsina State was received with jubilation, few dissenting minds are yet to see the new dawn heralded by the pragmatic decision of the Government to dissolve Local Government Councils based purely on patriotic intentions. This is easily discernible by cynical, mostly uninformed remarks about the law that gave the new regime the latitude to dissolve the Councils by even the seemingly enlightened among members of the old order as proved by the earlier mentioned advertorial.

To begin, not only was Section 81A of Local Government Law 2010 as amended (the law that gave legal backing to the dissolution of the hastily installed Local Government Councils) not new, it was even amended by the immediate past regime of Barr. Ibrahim Shehu Shema to accommodate such malfeasance as may make it necessary to take extreme actions such as dissolving the Councils.


Against allegations of witch hunting the Councils by the new regime, extreme carelessness in managing the commonwealth of the Local Government Councils was what made their dissolution not only laudable but necessary. To understand the intrigues one may need to break the relevant Section of the Joint Local Government Account law in layman's terms to make sense of the extreme action taken by the Government which was intended to safeguard the system and herald an end to an era of impunity. The Joint Local Government law stipulated there should be a Joint LG account which should be a responsibility of the State and the 34 local councils to manage according to well outlined terms to ensure effective utilisation of funds coming into the coffers of the local Councils. To support this law and make it more effective is another section (Section 3) establishing "Joint Local Government Account Allocation Committee" with membership comprising: 1. Commissioner of Finance - Chairman 2. All the 34 Council Chairmen 3. Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs 4. Accountant General of the State 5. Two representatives of the Accountant General of the Federation 6. Auditor General for Local Government 7. Member representing Katsina State in Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission 8. Secretaries of Katsina/Daura Emirate Councils 9. 2 persons to be appointed by the Governor

This Committee is saddled with the responsibility of collecting monies coming into the Joint Account and sharing same into their various accounts according to a specified formula. It is also the responsibility of the Committee to take decisions on how to withdraw and spend money from the Joint account with each member having the power to reject decisions that he believes to be inimical to the objectives of the Joint account or to his constituency. For funds to be taken out of the Joint LG account a consensus have to be arrived at within the Committee as to the objective(s) of such withdrawals. Where there is need for a common project beneficial to all the 34 LGs or, even including the State for instance, on contagious issues like security, education etc, an agreed sum as required will be deducted from each LG which will then be deposited in (please note) a special account to be created specifically for the purpose of financing that project (Section 7A and 7B). To enhance safety of funds in the LG Joint account, the law further stipulated that the Committee should meet at least once every month but they can meet as often as required by momental exigencies. To strengthen this, one third of the members of this Committee could, at any given time call for a meeting whenever the need arises. In a nutshell, the 34 Council Chairmen, with obvious majority voting power are truly the joint custodians of funds in the Joint Account with absolute control of its fate. By this law, nobody could remove money from the account without their joint approval. Should money be diverted from the Joint account against provisions of this law and without the protest of the Council Chairmen, then it's obvious there is a conspiracy. If they claim ignorance as most of them did during their interactions with various investigative Committees of the State Government and the House of Assembly, then it's a more serious case of negligence and dereliction of duty. The clearest breach of the relevant Section of the Financial Regulations in running the Joint account under the immediate past regime was the monumental fraud of withdrawing from the Joint Account the sum of N7.5bn and subsequent deposition of same into the account of ALGON; a sum out of which one of the Chairmen of ALGON confessed N3.7bn was withdrawn in cash by respective Chairmen of ALGON and delivered to the immediate past Commissioner of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs. Financial Regulations unambiguously prohibits depositing public funds in private accounts. ALGON is a private non governmental organisation floated to promote and protect the interest of Local Government Chairmen. By their membership of ALGON, this make the case of the 34 LG Chairmen of Katsina State a double jeopardy. By being members of the Joint Account Allocation Committee, they should have stopped the illegal withdrawal of the N7.5bn from the Joint Account and its subsequent illegal placement into the accounts of ALGON (a non governmental organisation) in complete contravention of the above law and relevant sections of the Financial Regulations and, most importantly, by being members of ALGON, they should know what happen to the N7.5bn after it was removed from the ALGON account - a tragedy they have no explanation for and which, by any yardstick constitute a serious dereliction of duty with resultant effect of a multi-billion lost to an impoverished State like Katsina.

As in any law, there are punitive measures for those who go against the law establishing LG Joint account and that establishing Joint Account Allocation Committee. Section 81A of Local Government Law 2010 as amended stipulated thus: (a) That in the interest of security, peace, order and good governance or for acts of mismanagement of public funds, the governor may at anytime before the expiration of tenure of a local government council dissolve any or all the 34 local government councils.

If the serious dereliction of duty exhibited by the sacked 34 Council Chairmen which led to a colossal lost of N7.5bn did not qualify for an action that could provoke breach of peace, compromise security, question good governance and perfectly fit the classification of mismanagement of public funds therefore, cause for extreme action as duly responded by Katsina State Government, one is left wondering what could.

Despite insinuations by hired roadside "constitutional lawyers" of the PDP that dissolving the 34 Local Councils was a breach of the law and contrary to provisions of Section 7 of the Nigerian constitution, nothing could be further from the truth. Believing such outlandish translation of the constitution is the worse disservice one could inflict on one's intellectual integrity. I expect these roadside "constitutional lawyers" to not only include the part of the constitution that provided how such dereliction should be dealt with but, to also argue the ability of the sacked Council Chairmen in discharging their duties by protecting the basic components of the LG Joint account and the Joint Account Allocation Committee laws which objectives is to ensure that allocations made to LGs in the State from FAAC and State Government are promptly paid into the account and to distribute the allocations to all the LGs in the State in accordance with the provision of the law. Perhaps, we may start with asking them the hows and whys the 10% State IGR that constitutionally should go to LGs was mostly denied them during the immediate past regime without these Chairmen raising a finger to defend their oath of office. The fact that the constitution guaranteed the tenure of a Local Council Chairman, that guarantee should not be confused with a blank cheque for a tenure devoid of responsibility and, neither should it free these Chairmen from the consequences of their irresponsible actions.


The constitution that guaranteed their tenure also made generous provision for sacking those who perform below its demands. By the way, the President, whose office and tenure is clearly more sensitive and more guaranteed than the tenure and office of a Local Council Chairman stand the risk of such extreme backlash if the occupant fall below the demands of the constitution. How simple application of laws purposely made to make a system effective could be mischievously misconstrued for witch hunt is something sponsors of the advertorial may have to explain for posterity to document.