There’s no federal might, people only drop names – Nwabunwanne, Anambra commissioner

As preparations intensify ahead of the November 8, 2025, governorship election in Anambra, the State Commissioner for Local Government and Town Union Affairs, TonyCollins Nwabunwanne, in this interview with Cajetan Mmuta, speaks on a wide range of issues, particularly on the efforts by the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA)-led administration of Governor Charles Soludo to reposition the 21 LGAs, the implementation of the order by the Supreme Court on payment of allocation funds directly to all councils for grassroots development and other issues

What is the current state of the 21 local government Areas in your state compared to the situation before you assumed office?

We are near perfect, and we are not 100 per cent there yet. We are still trying to see how we can get close to that. The local government administration is changing, and we have given community governance a breath of fresh air. Mr. Governor has wholly transformed the local government system. As we speak, I can beat my chest to say that since after the Supreme Court judgement, the only government in Nigeria that has started implementing the judgement and ruling of the Supreme Court is Anambra State. We are doing that in line with the laws passed by the state House of Assembly. Every other state has borrowed that law but has yet to implement it. If you go to the local governments, you see the Council areas building bridges and some infrastructure and looking to the needs of the masses in those local government areas. We have also instilled discipline in the workforce and local government workers. We are also looking at community governance, such as the Town Union matters; the last tenure of the previous community leadership just expired, and we have now decided to reshape the leadership and the governance structure. We had to reform it and put it in a proper perspective the way it is supposed to be, and that is why it now bears the Anambra State Town Union Council (ASTUC). It is not supposed to be an Association or a club because we are looking at Community governance at the grassroots level, just like the fourth-tier government, and that is why the people chose them to be their eyes in government. The local government system has been given a new tonic and the workers who did not go to work before are now going to work. We first came in, put the infrastructure in place, provided basic working tools, and sent them for training. Now we asked what the fundamental problems that they have in terms of remuneration are. Mr Governor said okay, let us see how we can help them with that.

For some time now, there have been issues of leadership crisis, such as chieftaincy and President-General tussles. What has the government done about that?

Since we came in, we have resolved the crises in those communities. The only communities we have yet to resolve its problem are Osumenyi and Awka South, out of the 179 communities in the state. Even where we have not done elections here, we have brought relative peace in those Communities because most of them border on cult issues like Osumenyi and Awka South. Mr Governor had a meeting and decided to say, what do we do? After that, we resolved that every community has to choose how they want to run their affairs.

Since the Supreme Court judgment, people have been worried about how the local government allocations are being used. What’s the situation in your state?

Well, just like I told you before, we are obeying the ruling of the Supreme Court. As a Commissioner, since I came into office, I have not executed projects, but if you go to other states, the Commissioner for local government execute projects and approves them. Here, projects are approved by the local governments, and when the funds come, they go to the Joint Account Commission (JAC). Even though I am the Chairman of JAC, that doesn’t give me the impetus to start approving projects. Instead, the local government Chairmen put up what they want to do; they use their funds to work and put those projects in place. Mr. Governor has said funds meant for the local government should go to the local government, and funds that belong to the state should go to the state. Suppose there are areas in which the state and local government can work together. In that case, the state and local government should put specific percentages of funds together in an account to execute those projects. In some local government areas like my own in Anambra West, the allocation cannot be compared with that of Aguata or Idemili North local government area. Yet my area is part of the areas that are worse in terms of infrastructure, and constructing a one-kilometre road in my place is twice the cost of building a road in other locations. So, if you do not collaborate with the state and local government areas, some local government areas, such as the Ogbaru local government area, will never be developed. So that is the initiative of the Joint Account Commission, and that is the thinking of the Governor. These are the things we put in place to make the local government system work, and with that, it is a win-win situation for both the local government and the state government, and there is massive infrastructural development for the entire state at large. The local government service commission has the power to take disciplinary actions against the workers and their training and make sure that they go to work. When we came on board, the local government released the owed pension of N14.8bn; as I speak to you from 2018, 2019, 2021, and some part of 2022, Mr Governor has cleared 2018, 2019, and 2020, and we are on 2021. That one comes to N7.8bn settled.

On April 5, 2025, there was the governorship primary election of your party, APGA, where delegates voted to endorse Governor Soludo for a second term in office. What is your take on that exercise?

That is an act of God, and we are not surprised at all. I have served three governors, and no governor has done what Soludo has done in three years more than the eight years that they were in office or four years. So, the people of Anambra state want to say thank you and that you have done well so far in office. Today, thousands of people are coming to APGA to join him because we are human beings and politics aside when you see good work, you have no reason not to commend him. Is it the five new General Hospitals or roads in Awka, the Ekwulobia flyover, or the connectivity and the employment of over 8,000 teachers, and he brings everything to the table? He said he could approve anything in the comfort of his room, but he brought it to the Executive Council because we were a team.

Are you worried about the challenge of Federal might from the APC government, which has posed a serious threat in some states, and the fear that such a bold step might be applied in the coming Anambra governorship election?

Anambra is not Edo or those states that you talked about, and I can tell you here that Anambra today is part of the people that formed the federal government, and that is the federal might. This is interns of human resources and financial capacity of the people, and the federal government would not overlook these people to do whatever they might want to do. Anambra has people who have names, pedigree, and capacity, as well as men who have made statements and are still making statements in this country, and they are not pushovers. As for me, I don’t believe in most of the things they are saying, and it is mere name-dropping, which is the way it is. I didn’t see how President Bola Tinubu was instigating such a thing, and he is a friend of my Principal. People are always trying to do name-dropping to justify patronage of their benefactors.