In the interview with Olusegun Olanrewaju, the President of Centre for Leadership and Justice, Mr Emmanuel Umohinyang, speaks on the need for local government autonomy and political intrigues ahead of the 2023 general elections

The level of violence across the country is worrisome and many fear it may affect the 2023 election. What can be done to change this situation?

I don’t think that we should be bothered about the issue of violence suppressing the will of the people in 2023, in the sense that under Muhammadu Buhari’s leadership, he has said it clearly that no single part of Nigeria will be held by non-state actors. The unfortunate situation that is playing out in the South-East will be dealt with by the armed forces. Nigerians, especially the people of the South East should not panic. I am sure that the actionable agencies are taking note of what is going on and efforts are also being made to arrest the situation. Don’t forget that before now the whole country was as if it was going to be taken over by miscreants, but presently, we can say yes, the government under the leadership of Buhari has done well in that regard. The thing is that as it comes, the government should be able, and capable to deal with it and suppress those non-state actors. I think in fairness to the Buhari administration, it has done almost everything possible to ensure that the poorest of the poor are raised from that balcony of poverty. I think that where the President is dealing with the state government, has to do with the Local Government (LG) structure. When you look at the LG structure, it is as if they exist only on the pages of the newspapers. The LGs are no longer there. This is what governors are doing in various states, whenever the FG pays money from the Federation Account to the LG, the governors will collect the money and tell the council chairman to sign, that they have collected this money, whereas the money did not get to the LG account. Don’t forget they are using a joint account in the state, so what the governors do is, as soon as they are privileged to have the money from the federation account. If for instance, N330bn is to be sent to a particular local government, the state government will sit down, hold on to the money, and call the council chairman of that state to come and sign that he has received the money whereas that money did not leave the state government account. So, what the governors only do is give them salaries to go and pay to the staff of the local government. First, from the records, it is shown that the LG chairman has collected it but in reality, the money is not in his hands. That is why people are finding it difficult to put streetlights; they are finding it difficult to put boreholes. These are LG issues. They are even difficult to build markets and drainages. It is a challenge for LGs because they would not receive these monies.

But why are the LGs quiet?

Don’t blame the LG chairmen, some of them were pushed into those positions by the state governors. They are errand boys of the state governors. Now the FG is looking for autonomy for the LG, but as I speak with you, the government is being restrained because most of the LGs are not willing to sign. The last time I was told that 16 of the LGs have signed and we have 774 LGs. So you see the poor numbers. If 16 states have consented and the constitution states that for autonomy to pass it needs 24 states to consent. So the LG chairman is not necessarily people who got into office by their effort. They were helped into office by the state government which is why the state governors are also the ones who dictate the tune, they must listen to them. These are the problems. We are in a situation where even the state house of assembly, at a point the government took the step to say look, the allocation should go straight to the assemblies to make them independent, but the state Houses of Assembly, the conference of speakers said, ‘no, we are happy with the way we are. We want to continue to suffer, and leave our state alone.’ So what do you expect the Federal Government to do? These are the challenges.

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Don’t you think that the National Assembly ought to do something about it?

The National Assembly under Lawal, I must say, has relatively shown some level of leadership. Unlike the cantankerous leadership of Bukola Saraki of the Eight Senate, this national assembly is not only ready to listen to President Buhari on all issues but there are issues presented to it that they rejected. I can cite so many. But this national assembly has been people oriented; they have focused on the people of Nigeria. So to be a national assembly member does not mean you will now go and take up a fight with the executive. Look, where you disagree with the executive there should be obvious reasons why you disagree and the executive too will not be seeing themselves as if they are masters over the national assembly. So that symbiotic relationship must exist, not at all times must there be a quarrelsome relationship.

Do you think the governors who have been accused of making rural people poor should be taken on by the EFCC?

You know it is a difficult thing for you to take the gospel to a sinner. It is a huge challenge, the governors themselves are all sinners who are soaked in the same pool. So, the LG is supposed to be the bedrock of tackling insecurity, and poverty. They ought to be bringing up programmes to tackle these issues. They are the closest to the people, the yearnings of the people get to their ears faster than the people in Abuja, but what do you have? You have a situation where we have the states suppressing the ideas of the LG. A state government continues to suppress the LGs because they don’t want them to ask for their rights. The Ministry of Finance may have to do what the last administration did. They should publish the funds that have been sent to the LGs so that even if the state government decides to hijack those funds, let the people of that LGs know that N500bn was sent to them.

Looking at the recent debate among the major presidential candidates, we noticed that Asiwaju Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress was absent. Many think it was deliberate. How do you react to his absence at the debates, especially since he was present at Chatham House at the time?

One thing I want you to know is that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is more of an eagle than a parrot. He is not like the Peter Obi of this world who goes around telling you that he will move from consumption to production. I am happy that Bayo Onanuga has put him in his place by letting him know that look, a country that produces and cannot consume what it produces, such consumption can’t proceed, because consumption and production can’t go hand in hand, the people must produce and they must be people who consume. Before you can think of exporting your production, there must be visible signs that you are consuming those things here. Asiwaju, if you know him since he was governor, between 2003 and 2007, he was a delight to the media, and I do not think that at this point he will now start running away from the media. Why would he do such, the media is his people. Don’t forget that Asiwaju has both print and electronic media, so why must he run away from the media?

I think what we have failed to understand is that wherein a politician owns a media house, the politician with a vested interest in a political party, whose candidate, is pushing the agenda of the candidate, it is an affront when you look at the principle of bias, for you to then allow another opponent of that politician, to go to his studio and conduct a debate. What debate? Who is fooling who? Look, if I were Asiwaju, I would put a strong statement out there, how are we sure that the questions have not been sent several weeks to the political party candidates who at some point place him at the vantage position over others? The media house itself had shown hate for Ahmed Tinubu, so you don’t expect him to go to such a place. This is a media house that put out a drug-related issue against a man. It is something that doesn’t exist and then tells the public that INEC is investigating, only for INEC to recall such a statement and apologise. I was happy that the Tinubu I know went to court.