Babatunji Wusu –
The local council’s chairwoman claims that Governor Abiodun’s illegal confiscation of local council monies has rendered the 20 local councils inoperative and exposed their personnel to ridicule in front of local residents for poor performance.
After a local government chairman on Sunday accused Governor Dapo Abiodun of withholding statutory allocations from the federation accounts to local governments in the state, details of the alleged misuse of local government money in Ogun State have come to light.
Wale Adedayo, the chairman of Ijebu East Local Government, claimed the governor had committed the unlawful behavior ever since he assumed office in May 2019.
The allegation was made by Mr. Adedayo in a letter that was sent to Olusegun Osoba, a former governor of the state and a prominent member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and made public on Sunday. Like Mr. Abiodun, Mr. Adedayo is a member of the APC.
The state’s current slate of council chairs was chosen to serve terms beginning in June 2021.
According to Mr. Adedayo, the illegal seizure of their finances has debilitated local governments in the state and exposed their officials to public jeers for poor performance in the council areas.
“This letter ought to have been written about two years ago,” he said. But I was cautious about what a lot of ignorant people would say about me. In addition, we anticipate you to be enjoying a well-earned break now considering your age and the magnitude of your selfless efforts to the advancement of our state and Nigeria in general. However, we expect the old to step in to right the wrongs that everyone seems to have missed. Agba kii wa ni oja, ki ori omo titun wo.
“Your urgent action is desperately needed to persuade Prince Dapo Abiodun, the governor of Ogun State, that each local government in Ogun State should be permitted to receive the statutory federal allocation as provided for by the 1999 Constitution. There has been ZERO federal funding allocated to any local government since we (the chairmen of the local governments in Ogun State) joined forces in 2021. Since Abiodun took office, the 10% of the state’s internally generated revenue that the Constitution also mandated should go to the local governments has not been distributed.
“At this point, the deleterious effects of Ogun State’s Local Government Councils receiving no federal funding should be obvious to everyone. If our local governments were receiving the funding outlined in the 1999 Constitution, we should not have lost the most recent elections in the locations where we did during the Governorship and House of Assembly contests. I’m not proud to announce that since we were sworn in, we (the local government chairmen) have accomplished very little—if anything at all—because Mr. Governor has refused to provide us the money we need to execute our jobs.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari provided what are now known as palliatives to the states and local governments. It was known as SURE-P. N2.5 billion was the initial sum handed to Ogun State’s 20 local governments. N2.6 billion was the second. The third was N2.8 billion, the fourth was N2.9 billion, and the fifth was just before Buhari left office. These money were not at all distributed to any local government in Ogun State. Early this year, the Ogun State Executive Committee of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) met with Mr. Dapo Okubadejo, the Commissioner for Finance.
The 20 local governments allegedly owe the Ogun State Government N17 billion, which they continue to deduct, according to the Commissioner. But I am positive that my Ijebu East Local Government owes Abeokuta not a single Naira!
We’ve also heard of other funds, like ecological funds. These have also mysteriously sprouted wings. The one that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is currently putting together will undoubtedly take the same path. And it will be us that the public mistreats. Currently, I am the punchline of jokes in my local government, with many people accusing me of being incompetent.
“Truly, Ogun State’s practice of denying local governments their fair share of federal funding dates back to the time when Senator Ibikunle Amosun served as the state’s former governor. And, as it is now, it was founded on the fictitious justification of assisting some local governments who might not be able to perform their duties to the people due to financial difficulties. As a result, all the money is regularly collected into a single purse, from which wages and other obligations are paid. The State Government frequently asserts that any remaining debts are being paid by the municipal governments.
“The State Government has largely seized the revenue sources that local governments should have access to. The State Government is in charge of centrally managing Motor Parks and the associated fees that belong to each local government. The primary school has also been taken over in terms of management and governance. There are a lot more. But what I really want is for you to support our people.
“Our people need roads in Ijebu East Local Government Area, especially in the interior. They require water. The Health Centers are not very noteworthy. The elementary schools are different. It is a terrible disgrace that some of our people still get their drinking water from streams in 2023! Nearly 60 years ago, Great Awo offered piped water.
In a statement given to PREMIUM TIMES, the governor refuted the accusations.
However, other local government chairpersons and members of the ruling party who talked with PREMIUM TIMES under the condition of anonymity out of concern for the governor’s retaliation have confirmed Mr. Adedayo’s allegation.
One of the local government chairs claimed that the governor’s misuse of council finances had been a major source of concern for the state’s political and other leaders, some of whom the source claimed had privately discussed it with Mr. Abiodun.
The source remembered the governor receiving a public message of worry from the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona.
“In June 2022 at Ijebu Ode, the governor and a few of his staff paid a visit to Oba Adetona. Abiodun was startled to hear the Oba ask a subtly worded question. The Oba asked Abiodun, “Gomina, kii de se kee mu Federal Allocation owon local government run won (Mr Governor, why are you not giving them the Federal Allocation of local governments in Ogun State)?” in Ijebu dialect. The governor skillfully changed the topic, and there was a deep silence in the room, the council leader recounted.
Another council source said that the governor withheld N8.1 billion owed to the 20 local councils in Ogun from the bailout cash distributed to all local councils nationwide by the federal government under former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.
Muhammadu Buhari, a former president
“The bailouts came in three tranches of N2.5 billion, N2.7 billion, and N2.9 billion,” the spokesman said. Out of the total as of May, N5.2 billion had vanished without going to any local governments. In Abeokuta, the remaining N2.9 billion is in jeopardy because it hasn’t been distributed.
The governor does not spare the councils’ own internal cash, according to several council chiefs who talked with PREMIUM TIMES.
“Since the Abiodun administration’s beginning (in May 2019), local governments are unable to collect taxes or fees on commercial vehicles, including motorcycles and cars. These fees, which are gathered every day, are paid to the state government. The name of the local government is printed on the tickets. One of the officials said that not a single penny was sent to the local governments.
“The same is true of tenement rates for buildings, particularly those used by businesses. Tenement charges cannot be collected by any local government in Ogun State.
Of course, the monthly Federal Allocation is the worst. There is a Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) meeting every month, and the Commissioner for Finance shall chair it. The Finance Commissioner has never been to any. The Ogun State Accountant General and the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs typically attend the meeting.
Since Dapo Abiodun became the governor, not a single naira has reached any of the 20 local governments. The purpose of the conference is just to discuss news from Abuja.
The governor centralizes and oversees the management of all local governments’ financial resources. Mr. Governor created an account at the Access Bank PLC, Abeokuta branch for each of the 20 local governments. The salary, benefits, and security votes of the chairmen are paid from this account.
In the meanwhile, since they are not signatories, no local government can access monies from the account beyond these payments. Only credit or debit warnings will be sent to each local government’s chairman and director of finance. By evening, a debit alert of N295 million without any communication from the local government could be noticed on an account that had something like N300 million in it in the morning. Direct management of the accounts is being done by Mr. Governor.
“The entire money from each time the federal government bails out states and LGs end up at the state level.
The local governments can’t handle a lot of things. Everything is horrible. Unfortunately, nobody from the Ogun State APC, with the exception of the Awujale of Ijebuland, has spoken out against this, according to one of the sources.
The governor claimed in a statement released by his top press secretary, Lekan Adediran, that he had never misappropriated council monies and that, instead, he had added to them so that local governments in the state could fulfill their commitments and carry out development projects.
To help local councils meet their commitments, Mr. Adeniran questioned how “adding to the funds allocated to the local councils to enable them to meet their obligations amounted to hijacking their funds.”
He added that the Joint Account and Allocation Committee (JAAC), through which the money are distributed to the municipalities, held its most recent meeting last week, which was widely covered by the media.
According to the statement, the JAAC is made up of key players in the administration of local governments, including the governor’s chief economic adviser, the commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs, the state’s comptroller general, the permanent secretary for local government and chieftaincy affairs, each of the 20 local government chairmen, a representative from each of the state’s four traditional councils, and a SUBEB, NULGE, and local government pensioners.
According to the statement, more than N5 billion was distributed among the 20 local government areas during the most recent meeting, which took place at the Conference Hall at the Oba’s Complex in Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, more than N2 billion of which went toward paying teachers.
“The JAAC shared among 20 local governments N4.531b, N4.444b, and N4.497b respectively on first line charges between May 2023, when the Governor was sworn in for a second term, and July 2023, and just last week N5.2b was shared among the local governments for the month of August,” the statement read.
The state administration completely reported the federation account receipt at the meeting, according to the report, and the same pattern has been followed ever since Governor Abiodun assumed office in the state in 2019.
The statement continued, “In addition to these, the state government also periodically disburses monies to all local governments for developmental initiatives.
According to information on the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) website, Ogun State’s local governments received more than N25.4 billion from the Federation Account between May and December 2019.
The overall allocations for 2020 were N37,679,432,983.66; for 2021, N40,005,104,742; and for 2022, N29, 349, 500, 718.
Data showed that approximately N132 billion in allocations from the federation were made to the 20 LGAs in Governor Abiodun’s state during his first term as governor, which ran from May 2019 to December 2022.
