As the debate of Local Government autonomy rages on,Hon. Wale Adedayo,a former chairman of Ijebu East Local Government Area of Ogun State, share his experience,of how Governor Dapo Abiodun,dealt with him, for being vocal,in demanding access to local government funds. In this interview, he states that the Attorney General of the Federation going to the Supreme Court, may not be the recipe for Local Government autonomy, among other issues. CHIBUIKE CHUKWU brings the excerpts.
It’s like the AGF is now sharing your call for the autonomy of Local Government Areas; can you explain when you started the call?
Talking about the AGF suit, I don’t think the LG autonomy can be achieved through the Supreme Court. It is a constitutional matter and there is no autonomy of local government in the constitution. I don’t pray that any conscientious Nigerian who is in an elective office should experience what I experienced as local government chairman. Before you get into an elective position or you become a chairman, you must have promised the people that you’ll do this and that. But getting into the office, you don’t get a dime to do what you were elected to do or what you promised the people that you were going to do. You’ll understandably feel frustrated and feel that you are on another planet. In Ogun State, it was not like this before but in this period, it is certainly bad. Presently, we seem to have people who are so scared of those in authority and virtually everything local government ought to do is being done by the state government. We have twenty local government in Ogun State; we have been complaining and talking to some leaders here and there; sadly in Ogun State, it seems the APC doesn’t have quality leaders, with due respect to those who are there but none of them has come out to intervene and talk to Mr. Governor that what he is doing is not good. What he’s doing is not right because I’ve been there before. I’ve worked with a governor before and I know how this thing works. The thing is that during this period, every day is completely different. In Ogun State, it’s as if no local government is working. It’s as if there is no local government administration in the real sense of it. A few things that people (local government chairmen) are doing are just cosmetic. We go out of our way to borrow money, maybe begging some people to do one or two things. The normal monthly allocation is not coming and as you know from the constitution, there’s a certain percentage of the state Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) that should be going down to the local government. Ten percent of what the state makes in a month ought to be given to the local government but it is zero over there. Before President Buhari left the stage, he made some emergency funds available, more than ten billion naira got to Ogun State alone, but not a dime came to any of our local government areas. The whole thing was just hanged in Abeokuta, the state capital, none trickled down to the local government. So, it was a very bitter experience to all of us and a lot of my friends were telling me that Wale, ‘you shouldn’t have gone there, but I told them no, if you want to serve, the best place to serve and truly impact the people is at the local government level, not House of Assembly, not National Assembly and all other higher positions. It must be the local government because that is where you have the majority of poor people and me as an Afenifere, I prefer that background. I prefer that grassroots level as a form of service to the people.
When you said not even a dime, what exactly do you mean? Do you mean that during the period you were there, not a single money was made available to you?
That is what I’m telling you. The reality is that some of their media people will come out tomorrow and want to say this or that. The books are there. I’ve submitted a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) but I don’t know what they’re doing about it. Let them do a forensic audit and determine where all the money went. They don’t give us money. Normally we have the monthly allocation meeting but at such meetings, it was just like a briefing. A meeting is supposed to be a discussion between two, three or more parties but it’s not, it’s just like a briefing. They would come there, distribute some papers to us and before you even sit, you would have signed that you attended the meeting. You sign before the meeting starts. The essence is to give the impression that you actually attended and that you agreed with everything discussed there. They bring out the paper to show how much came in and how much had been spent. That is how they do it. It’s not as if we go there and that this is what is due to your local government and the same is credited to your local government account tomorrow or next, or in a short period of time. They’ll say they have paid salaries, they’ve paid dues and they’ve paid this or that. It is not their responsibility for God’s sake, it’s our responsibility to do that so that whatever remains after the payments, we use it to do projects for the people in our respective local government areas; that should be our mandate to them. That is the way it’s done in a sane environment but that’s not done in Ogun State. The whole thing is handled by the state government and not even a dime gets to the local government areas, at least as at the period that I was there; not a dime came to us. In a particular instance of my case, we had been having meetings as local government chairmen and it got to a point that the ALGON chairman in Ogun State called me one day that a few of them had on some things like we have been discussing before. He said; ‘Wale you are the only journalist among us, why not put all these things together and let’s roll with Chief Osoba, Maybe he is going to act this time around’. So I put them together, edited and sent them to Chief Osoba. Unfortunately, a senior colleague that we have been discussing the Ogun State matter with who is also from Ogun but based his children in Abuja, a very senior to me as a journalist, sent it to the media. We didn’t send it to the media but we all agreed on it as chairmen. Of course when the whole issue gathered dust, everybody backed out. I am coming from a different background, I mean I cannot be scared of any earthly authority but they were all scared and I told them, look ‘this man (governor) cannot remove even ten local government chairmen at a go but they were so scared. Really I don’t know what makes Nigerians to be so afraid of those in authority. Even this money we are talking about is not meant for me Wale Adedayo; it is not meant for any of the local government chairmen as their personal money. It is money meant for the development of our respective areas for the people and in accordance with the promises we made during elections. So if somebody is blocking such money, we should do whatever it takes to shout and reach out to the people for the right thing to be done. But my colleagues were scared and until tomorrow, they’re still scared. Their tenure will end by next month or something like that but after that, what happens? If you’re going to vie for another higher position, what are you going to tell the people that you did in the last three years? What will you present as your scorecard to the people that you did that will warrant their votes for you? My experience has been very bad in this respect.
Will you say that your experience is also applicable to other local government chairmen not just in Ogun State but other parts of the country?
I want to believe that throughout the 774 local government areas in Nigeria, it should be virtually the same thing. However, I learnt that in Kaduna State when El Rufai was there, he was doing the right thing although I don’t know if that is still being done right now. That is the only state I can single out that they were getting their money unless someone there then could come and say something contrary to what I have just said. Apart from this, I think my experience cuts across the whole country. I heard El Rufai ensured that the local government chairmen were getting their allocations and he was even adding extra for them to ensure they serve the people through project execution but in Ogun State, it was not like that. Funnily it’s not even the local government chairmen alone that will confirm this, the people at the grassroots in Ogun will tell you what is going on. Normally if the local government is functioning, it’ll impact the economy and there should be a reprieve for the people at the grassroots because there will be small jobs, what people call contracts. There will be something like, ‘that school is broken down, you go and do it; that primary healthcare centre is broken down, the other person goes and do it’. There’s no way either a bricklayer or a carpenter that goes there, makes money and that money will not go back and help the local economy. But it’s not happening. Everybody is talking about whether the president didn’t do this or that, no. The governors are messing up.
You said in the LG autonomy, it’s not about the AGF going to the Supreme Court because Supreme Court may not be able to do anything in this regard, but the AGF is asking the apex court to invoke sections 1, 4, 5, 7 and 14 of the constitution to declare that governors and the State Assemblies are obliged to ensure democratic system at the third tier of government. So is it the autonomy alone that you’re afraid the Supreme Court won’t be able to address, what about other summons and pleas that the AGF is asking?
Other aspects are ok but the autonomy may not sail because if you go to Sections 167 Subsection 6 of the constitution, the joint account for local government and the state is clearly stated in the constitution but it takes a governor with conscience, a governor who believes in God, a governor who believes that he is there to serve the people on God’s behalf, to do the right thing. People are suffering and they’re not bothered. Where do they think they’re going to end up? They’re not going to live one thousand years or live like Methuselah. As a governor or public office holder, if you believe that one day you’re going to die and give account of how you live to God, whatever that is due to the people, you give it to them. Let them have it so that their lives can improve. When the people are praying to God, it is not as if God is going to come down, No. God is going to answer those prayers through elections of people into offices for them to solve the problems of the people. When you as a public office holder are not serving the people, that means you’re anti-God, you’re against God. If you believe that one day you’ll die and answer God on how you lived your life, you should be able to give money that belongs to them for their own benefit and not to keep it. We go to church and we go to mosque but we don’t exhibit the character of those who believe in God. If you’re keeping money that is meant for development, for what purpose for Christ sake. People are suffering and going through a lot in this country and yet you’re contributing to that suffering. You should be ready for whatever punishment that will come.
During your time as chairman, did you have access to your LG account and did you have any control over the account?
You know every month, there is a FAAC meeting in Abuja and a few days after that, there is a JAAC meeting at the state level involving state and LGAs which we attend. But what I discovered was that my LG account which the local government money goes into was domiciled with Access Bank just like other LGAs but I as the chairman didn’t have access to that account. Debit and credit alerts come to my phone as the chairman. I remember in 2022, the ALGON chairman in Ogun State, while we were having a meeting with the Commissioner for Local Government, said, ‘Commissioner, last week almost N300 million entered into the account of Ijebu Ode Local Government but towards evening, the account was reading zero. What happened sir’? And I told him, egbon, my own local government was even worse, we had something close to N500 million in that account, the credit alert came to me but by evening, it remained about 12 naira or thereabout, without me as the local government chairman okaying that such money be removed. Everything is being done from Abeokuta in terms of withdrawals and crediting but we as chairmen get both debit and credit alerts. I’ve sent a petition to EFCC and I have no doubt that if they do what is expected of them through proper forensic audits, after his tenure, somebody will go to jail. They created accounts in our names which we were not signatories to. When you come in, they put your phone numbers there so that you get credit alerts as well as debit alerts so that it looks as if we’re the ones running the accounts, we’re not. They run the account and do whatever they like with it.
On the joint account issue, will you say that the framers of the constitution intended it to ensure that the governors control the local governments?
Not that the governors should control the funding of the local governments. From my background as a political editor, I want to believe that the intention of the framers of the constitution was that the states should have local governments under them. I have no problem with that. But the attitude is like having employees denied working tools. So if people of conscience are there, whether with a joint account or not, whatever that is due to the local government will go to them. They shouldn’t let greed kill them. They shouldn’t let greed bring curses upon their generations after they’ve gone because each time people cry to God, there’s no way their cries won’t reach the ears of God. If the local government areas are run properly and their funds get to them as it should be, there is no way the level of hardship in Nigeria will be at the level it is right now because Federal Government will be doing its own, state government will be doing its own and the local governments which are the closest to the people will be doing their own and through that, things will be alright as everything will be functioning properly. People will get jobs to do and parents will have money to feed their children, but that is not happening because some people are just playing greed, forgetting that tomorrow their lives may end. They don’t remember that tomorrow, they will answer to judgment. Maybe our political parties should see that people with conscience and not just someone going to church or mosque and given one title or the other in churches and mosques are governors. People with conscience should be governors in Nigeria but I don’t see any of them presently with conscience and that is the truth.
But will you suggest scrapping that aspect of the constitution that talks about joint accounts so that these funds will go directly to the LGAs?
Exactly, that is what the Attorney General should do. That section of the constitution must go and he has a lot of work to do on that because the last time efforts were made towards this, the governors frustrated it. I think we had about 21 or 22 in support and we needed about 24 or 25 states to achieve that. That aspect of the constitution, that section 162 subsection 6 should go. There shouldn’t be a need for a joint account; if the money is coming from the federation account and the state is getting its own directly, let the local governments get their own directly too. But right now, what we need is not this Supreme Court thing; pastors, imams and traditional rulers should tell these governors that they should stop these shenanigans they are doing.
