₦airaland Forum

Local Government Financial Autonomy; Hope For Owan Constituency At Last? By: Joe Agbebaku

The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has earlier this
month issued notice prohibiting governors, banks and other stakeholders from
interfering and inter-meddling with the constitutional allocations and funds of Local
Governments from the Federation Account. By this development, the Local
Government would attain true financial autonomy. The implementation of this
new policy will take effect from June 1, 2019 according to the NFIU.
It is noteworthy however that the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
(1999) under Section 162 (6) provided for each state to maintain a special
account to be called "State Joint Local Government Account", making the state
government to be responsible for the allocation and disbursement of funds
coming from the federation account to the Local Governments.
This discretion and power given to the state government has been widely abused
by state governors, which could go to support the reason why most of the
governors are kicking against the new NFIU policy already. The Governors
should however be minded by the fact that the policy is accompanied with some
sanctions ( both international and local sanctions).
Prior this development, there has been a noticeable clamour for Local
Government autonomy, it is not a surprise to see that this news of the NFIU
policy received a wide range of accolades from the public, albeit not devoid of
some backlashes and criticisms from some political pundits and commentators.
A swift shift from that to the main gist of this piece about a constituency that
came to my mind going through the NFIU notice, to wit: the Owan Federal
Constituency.

The Owan constituency comprises two Local Governments in Edo State, i.e.
Owan East and West. These Local Governments have been considered as the
least developed Local Governments in Edo State. The constituency has suffered
neglect, marginalisation, inconsideration, and lots of peripheral treatment from
the government of Edo state since the beginning of the present republic.
Apart from the fact that there has not been project of state or even federal nature
recently in Owan Constituency, the old projects like schools, hospitals, roads,
drainages, electricity etc. are all rotting in abandonment with no effort to revive
them. We have records of situations whereby snakes and rabbits receive lectures
with pupils in classes like the case of Uhonmora Secondary Commercial School,
Uhonmora Ora which has been and still in a very deplorable condition; reported
cases of public hospitals without equipment and with decaying structures; lack of
road networks and electrical power supply like the situation in Era and other
communities in the constituency, to name but just a few.
Several requests that I am aware of had been forwarded to and or lodged at the
Local Government Councils of the constituency with respect to structural and
infrastructural improvement and development of the constituency, always end up
with same stories of “the Local Governments have no funds to carry out projects,
or that the State government is hoarding or diverting the allocations for the
development of the constituency or that it is the responsiblity of the state
government to carry out those projects” . Further requests to the state
government usually do not receive any attention or response.
This article is not aimed at debating on who has the responsibility of developing
the constituency or not. Howbeit, one assurance we should have now is that
when the new NFIU policy is fully in force and effective (hopefully fronm June 1,
2019), the people of Owan would then know the direction to orchestrate their cry
to. The Local Government Council executives on the other hand, can then be
held liable for any irresponsibility as per the development of the Owan
constituency.
As noted earlier, some criticisms ensued as to the constitutionality of the new
policy, i.e. whether or not the NFIU has not acted in ultra vires. Well, that
argument should be left for the court to decide on as we anticipate June 1, 2019.
Some critics even went some bits further to contend that it would create an
avenue for the Local Government Councils officers to embezzle public funds
which state governments have been managing to utilise. The question is, what
choice do the people have? Like in the situation with the referenced Owan
constituency. It is like being presented with the option of who you can hold
responsible for an action or inaction, would you not rather choose the option of

who you can easily access than the other which can neither be accessed nor
held liable?
Methinks having the Local Government Councils bosses liable and accountable
for misappropriation of the allocations to the constituency is better than not
having the actual allocation to the constituency and worst case is having the
allocations diverted to and or concentrated on other localities or persons.
In the light of the foregoing, it would be safe to say that the people of Owan and
indeed other people in similar situations in other localities and other states of the
federation would embrace this development with great joy and optimism.
Let me take a break here with this note from the NFIU: "...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 not for other purposes".

From MandyNews.com

Here’s a brief look at the results of the European elections, country by country, arranged according to the number of seats they hold in the European Parliament:

GERMANY: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s middle-of-the-road governing coalition lost significant ground, while the Greens surged and the far right made modest gains.

FRANCE: The far right handed a humbling defeat to pro-EU President Emmanuel Macron.

UNITED KINGDOM: Britain’s two long-dominant parties took a hammering while a new anti-EU party won the biggest share and smaller pro-Europe parties surged.

ITALY: Interior Minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right party won the Italian vote, more than quadrupling its representation.

SPAIN: The governing Socialists won. Three Catalan separatist leaders were elected but will have trouble taking their seats because one is in jail and two are fugitives.

POLAND: The right-wing ruling party emerged as the big winner.

ROMANIA: The main party in the governing national coalition lost ground.

THE NETHERLANDS: The center-left pulled off a surprise victory, while Geert Wilders’ right-wing populists lost all four of their seats.

BELGIUM: An extreme right, anti-immigrant party made a massive surge in Dutch-speaking Flanders, while the Greens made fresh inroads in francophone Wallonia and Brussels.

CZECH REPUBLIC: The governing centrists gained ground despite their leader, Prime Minister Andrej Babis, facing fraud charges involving the use of EU funds.

GREECE: The ruling left-wing party fared so poorly that the prime minister called new national elections . The opposition conservatives did best, while the extreme-right Golden Dawn lost support.

HUNGARY: Populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s party continued its domination.

PORTUGAL: Participation plummeted to a historic low, and the governing Socialists won comfortably.

SWEDEN: The ruling Social Democrats held onto their majority despite gains by a nationalist party.

AUSTRIA: Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s center-right party recorded a big win, but he was ousted Monday following the collapse of his scandal-tainted coalition.

BULGARIA: The ruling center-right did best.

DENMARK: A euroskeptic, anti-immigration party slumped, and the pro-EU governing Liberals benefited.

FINLAND: The environmentalist Green League made the biggest gains, while the populist euroskeptics held their ground.

SLOVAKIA: The country with the lowest turnout — 22.7% — delivered victory to a new pro-EU coalition linked to the president-elect.

CROATIA: Governing conservatives won the most votes, while a far-right group finished third.

IRELAND: Ireland is still counting its votes.

LITHUANIA: Former NBA star Sarunas Marciulionis won a seat for the ruling party.

LATVIA: Parties linked to the country’s Russian-speaking minority won nearly half the seats.

SLOVENIA: An anti-immigrant group won with more
than a quarter of all votes, but moderate groups from the ruling coalition together got more than a third.

CYPRUS: The ethnically divided island elected a Turkish Cypriot for the first time.

ESTONIA: The center-right opposition won the elections, while anti-immigrant euroskeptics won a seat for the first time.

LUXEMBOURG: The party of outgoing European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker lost one of its three seats.

MALTA: The governing Labor Party won most seats.

There is a viral video sighted by Mandynews.com, of a man who called off his wedding upon discovering that his fiancee was cheating on him.

A Twitter user identified as Ebubelove‏ reported the incident on the platform.

Watch the video below.

Reno Omokri has said any man a woman can control is still a boy and will not show much happines in the relationship.

While posting his daily nuggets on his Twitter page, the political activist targeted women and told them to rejoice when they come across a man they can’t control as that is the definition of a real man.

He then further stated that men do not need control but support

"Dear women, If you find a man that you cant CONTROL, don’t be disappointed. Instead, go and rejoice. You have found a REAL MAN. Any man that you can control is still a boy and that relationship will not be happy. Real Men need SUPPORT, not CONTROL #FreeLeahSharibu #RenosNuggets"

There was mild panic yesterday at the National mosque, Abuja where President Buhari observed his Juma’at prayers as part of activities lined up for his inauguration ceremony.

The Juma’at prayers started around 2pm and ended almost 10 minutes later. The crowd of worshippers were thrown into confusion when a group of worshippers, suspected to belong to the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), also known as Shiites stood up and started chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is great) while others were busy insulting President Buhari. The Murshid (administrator of the mosque) Shehu Ahmad Galadanci was making special prayers for the president. The chants became louder as security operatives struggled to control the crowd and return normalcy.

MandyNews.com gathered that, it could be a form of protest by the Shiite sect against the continuous detention of their leader, Ibraheem El-Zakzaky by the federal government.
Present at the mosque were Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state, acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Tanko Mohammed Etsu Nupe, Yahaya Abubakar, traditional rulers, ministers, lawmakers and security chiefs.

The President was later spirited out of the Mosque by armed soldiers.

According to the video the angry Shiite youths can be seen insulting President Buhari and Chief of Army staff.

Transition: "You have to challenge the oppressors, the number one criminal is the person of Muhammed Buhari. We are still here, if you like to come and kill us we are ready to die.
For your information, young man you have to come in here because i know you are a youth, you should know you have family even if you don't have child you have mother and have father.
You should know, don't allow any criminal, any secondary school drop out, Muhammadu Buhari can not present his secondary school certificate this is an insult to the whole Nigeria.
How can someone who can not pass WAEC and NECO give you whole right to kill the citizens he thinks we are fools? (Kill them) but for your information anybody, anybody be you chief of army staff, from the chief of staff down to the last copra of the Nigeria army. We know each and every of you that's is killing our brothers and sisters, we know you and you know yourselves. We know your family members we know where you live and we know your office
Bear it at the back of your mind, there must be a day that you will face the consequences of killing the innocent citizens in Nigeria.
And the fool, the fool, the criminal that's the person of Mohammad Buhari that order the killing of innocent citizen Mohammad Buhari, that come from Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Buhari that collected contract from America to kill the citizen all the name of Fulani herdsmen and Boko Haram bear if in mind this thing you are doing because of president is limited time in the next four years you will not be at the sit of presidency, and remember you claimed to come from the North, from the place where you call Daura there's no way you can kill more thousands of innocent citizen and think you will be free from your operation."

Watch video below.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-ZmEI-Gxu8

Bishopsgate:
Franklin Omogbai Ikharo

And you?

Botfuss:
You are a public servant who ought to collect 400,000 per month,but you are cruising in Ferrari’s and Lamborghini’s. If you have no skeleton in your board bro Dino,let the guy government do its job. That’s how it’s In every working country. Ole gbogbo

(f) Destination

It needs be remembered that all along Okpame with his people communicated in Edo language as they went This destination was named Odorlerle, probably after the style of Ore igbeni (streets of elephant killers); the slight amendment which resulted in Odorlerle is the reversion of the streets or abode of the dead (not the dead’s streets or abode, not Ore-odo but Odo-ore/Odorlerle)

The following reasons stand out as basis for why Odorlerle was so named:
¡. Odo  is a common word for the dead as evidenced in one of Ora age-long dirges Odo rie owa rie (2ce) Oi ye mon odo. –This means the dead is going to its home (2ce), it is not doing of the dead (Because of non-literacy to ascertain the word and its spelling. some singer sing dododo wa e...”! However the key word or portion of it is Odo’(the dead).

¡¡. Many years after the initial founders and settlers under Uguan had left there, successor -settlers of Ora community, which in turn moved away from the site, retained it for the purpose of their departed chiefs to particular, using common graves on Unit basis. As recently as some twenty years back not less than a dozen corpses of some Ora High Chefs (Edion urukpa) were taken there for burial.

iii. An ancient Ora  lyric  has it that Uguan fled to safety after traversing ten grass lands and ten thick forest lands
‘’Uguan se rb ‘oa vb odorlerle 
Vb ‘ira ato igbe bi ugbo igbe’’

¡v. The column of cloud which disappeared for a thread.Iike link between earth and heaven was considered as a special endowment to Ora powerful persons or the initiated, for invocation and use. Oghoo of Eme was one, among others. who used (this) invoked thread to climb into the clouds..

Today, among reasons why the awe and value of Odorlerle are practically lost to Ora are movement away from the site sheer carelessness or non-maintenance of the significant antiquities there, advent and acceptance of Christianity and civilization, and  acquiescence of neighbours’ claim to much of the area.