LG chairmen must avoid corruption, they don’t have immunities like governors- Umohinyang  

Despite the Supreme Court ruling that gave full financial autonomy to local government areas, some state governors are trying to circumvent the judgement through their state houses of assembly. The National Assembly has warned against any misinterpretation of the apex court ruling. What are your views on this matter?

For some of us, the judgement of the Supreme Court was expected because it was like a thunderbolt from the sky. Many governors were taken aback, but we saw it coming. Most governors held onto the residual laws made by their houses of assembly. Over the years, local government councils have become toothless bulldogs. During the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, a local council chairman burst into tears when he got the council’s monthly allocation. He was compelled to sign the original allocation sent from the federal account. In essence, what was given to him was just money to pay workers’ salaries and a little to run his office, but the governor gave him a document to sign that he had collected all the funds. So, the Supreme Court put things in proper perspective by saying the money should go straight from the federation account to the local government account- after all, we have three tiers of government. The governors have been collecting the money under the guise of joint account and giving the council chairmen only a small portion to pay salaries and pocket the rest- that is why you cannot see any local government area embarking on capital projects over the years. No local government chairman over the years was able to build one primary school or fix bad roads, and what that meant was that the joint account was a big deceit over the years. Even at that, President Bola Tinubu had been very generous with governors since he came into power. He even gave the governors three months to adjust after the Supreme Court judgement. It showed that the President also cared for the governors to put a proper local government structure in place. If this judgement had been given in the era of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, no local government without a proper democratic structure would receive any funds from that day. Still, President Tinubu did not do that because he did not want the local government staff to suffer. He called a meeting with all the governors and gave them a 90-day window to conduct elections into the various LGAs. Unfortunately, we are all witnesses to what is happening in Oyo State from a governor I had hoped would show exemplary leadership. He is trying to circumvent the decision of the Supreme Court, and no society will allow that to happen. The judgement of the Supreme Court is binding on anybody nationwide. The question we should be asking Governor Seyi Makinde is whose interest he is serving. If you know you have not been mismanaging LG funds, why are you trying to checkmate it? He was one governor who openly criticized that judgement. Even when others may be in pain, they were decent enough to keep quiet. Governor Makinde is trying to use handpicked members of the Oyo State House of Assembly to circumvent the Supreme Court’s judgment.

But the Senate has also warned against circumventing the judgement…

The senators and the governors are eating in the same restaurant as far as this matter is concerned, and they (senators) are not the best people to speak on this matter. However, I do not think what the governors are trying to do with their houses of assembly will be of any effect because the Supreme Court has given a decision, and the Federal Government will implement it. I want the Presidency to publish the monthly allocations to all the 774 LGAs so that Nigerians will see it. The people should be able to walk up to their LGA chairmen and ask what they used the monthly allocations for. Beyond that, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) should set up offices in all the 774 LGAs to monitor the use of council allocations. Local government chairpersons should caution themselves because, whereas a governor has immunity, they do not have it, and they could be arrested and prosecuted while still in office. If one kobo is misappropriated from the LG fund, the council chairperson should be picked up immediately like a rat, investigated, and prosecuted if found culpable because you cannot toil with the people’s money.

Why are there all manners of arguments trailing the Supreme Court ruling on LG’s financial autonomy? We also have traditional rulers demanding five percent of LG allocation, while on the other hand, teachers who are statutorily under the LG administrations are objecting to being paid by LGAs due to past experience where they were owed several months. 

The controversy over local government arguments is neither here nor there. Traditional rulers have a place in local government administration. We are saying that as soon as the funds are released to the LGAs, the LG chairpersons should ensure they are not intimidated by the governors. We have heard that some governors are of the view that it will be business as usual. The next step the government should immediately push is ensuring that INEC conducts LG elections. For as long as governors continue to pick LG presiding officers, what we have achieved through the Supreme Court may be a mirage. We must get to a point where INEC superintends all our elections. As bad as INEC may be, it is far better than what we see in most states regarding the conduct of LG polls. Only in Kaduna, under former governor Nasir el-Rufai’s administration, did you have other political parties winning LG polls? What you see in different states, especially with the recent gathering of the vultures in Rivers State, where some people just emerged as LG chairmen without figures of election results, is an abuse of the process. So, the government needs to see that the Constitution is amended so that the INEC can conduct all the elections. It is even a waste of resources when states conduct LG polls. Look at what happened in Akwa Ibom State; it is an embarrassment, and I do not know how the Senate President sleeps. In the Senate President LGA, a PDP candidate was declared the winner, but when the winner was announced at the state level, an APC person was announced. I think all these kinds of scenarios should not be allowed because it makes a mockery of our democracy when election no longer matters. However, I will advise that the 90-day window for the conduct of LG elections should be maintained so that at the end of the window, monies should be transferred directly to LG accounts.

Insecurity has remained a major challenge, so why have we not gotten it right over the years?

It would not be fair for us to blame the military without giving space for commendations. We all know how bad the security situation was in the past. The immediate past administration of Buhari spent a lot of money acquiring weapons for the military, which is what the present administration of President Tinubu is utilizing. You may not have heard of heavy funds for procuring weapons because of what is on the ground. In looking at insecurity, we should find out what it was yesterday and today. Are we there? The answer is no. However, we should continue to push the government to do more. The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, has shown capacity and dexterity and knows what he is doing. He has been able to coordinate the service chiefs to ensure that security is paramount in line with section 14 (2) of the Constitution. So, what we should be looking at is that are we there, of course, no. These bandits come in here to strike and run into the neighbouring countries. You cannot breach the area of territorial sovereignty. Still, we also have that area of collective agreement, another matter because your country’s seriousness and zeal in dealing with these challenges may not be the same as the other country. You should also note that politics also comes into play because there are people in different countries who are into gun running in their countries but chose to cause insecurity in Nigeria because of their flourishing business. So, the government is taking the battle to the criminals, which is why we somehow get results. Do not also forget that the military are paying with their lives just to keep us safe. The police are also complementing the military.

Insecurity is one of the contributing factors to the high costs of food because farmers can no longer freely farm. How can this be addressed, considering that we still import a chunk of our consumables?

We are all suffering the challenges of food shortages nationwide. I understand the President has set up a committee partnering with the state governors to ensure we return to the farms. The federal government does not have farms, nor does it have land for farming. All land belongs to states. Unfortunately, many state governors are not interested in agriculture apart from a few. Their primary interest is the monthly allocations they get from the federal allocation and the excess money they were getting after the petrol subsidy removal. The President has come in as the centre and has made available some funds to state governments for support so that they can encourage the farmers to return to farms. The more food we have on the market, the cheaper it becomes. We also have the challenges of transporting agricultural produce from farm settlements to markets and urban centres, and I believe the government is also tackling this.  It is being addressed in phases with the conversion of commercial vehicles to CNG, which will, in turn, bring down the cost of transportation. The CNG conversion is already being subsidized for them. So, various indices affect the high cost of foodstuff, and the President is worried about it. That is why he is doing everything he can to reduce the price of foodstuff.

After so many years of failed Turn Around Maintenance for its four refineries, the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited now relies solely on Dangote Refinery for its petrol supply. Don’t you think this is part of the primary cause of economic hardship?

During the era of ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, there was a protest over subsidy removal tagged: Kill corruption and not Nigerians. The idea behind the protest was the fight against the corruption surrounding petrol subsidy where people were round-tripping and milking the country dry. NNPCL has become a national embarrassment, particularly for information managers. It is an embarrassment that they have been on the turnaround maintenance issue for this long and do not have any definite date when it will be completed. The Group Managing Director of NNPCL, Melee Kyari, should have honourably resigned long ago since he saw he had become helpless. You do not have any reason to sit still if you do not know when the refineries will become functional, giving way for others to take over. We have seen it happening in other climes. For just a small mistake they make, they tender their resignation. Unfortunately, it is not practiced here in Nigeria. Regarding the issues of the Dangote Refinery, we thought its emergence would lead to a reduction in the cost of petrol, especially where there is a local crude supply and the elimination of the freight cost for imported petrol. The indigenous production of petroleum products, the four refineries, and the Dangote working will reduce foreign exchange demand. We should not put all our hope on Dangote Refinery alone. By the time all the refineries in the country are functioning, market forces will come into play, and the costs of the products will reduce drastically. One of the major causes of this hardship is that the funds from subsidy removal are not utilized correctly. The state governors are not using the money for what they are meant for; that is where my worry is. Where is the money they collected, and what did they use it for? When there was a protest sometime in August, some governors told the protesters they would convey their messages to Abuja; what were they conveying to Abuja when they had already collected the money? They ought to have used the money they collected from the Federal Government to cushion the effect of the economic hardship in their respective states.