The editorial, ‘Residents, demand explanations from Ogun LG chairmen,’ published in the October 13, 2023 edition of The PUNCH, makes interesting reading. The editorial begins by saying: “Cursory observation by elder statesman, Chief Afe Babalola, hastily concluded that governments across the country had rendered local governments inertial by hijacking their allocations.” It further states that the allegation by the impeached Chairman of Ijebu East Local Government, Wale Adedayo, who had accused Governor Dapo Abiodun of denying LGs their statutory funds, should be a starting point to demand “an accounting from the council chiefs.”
It adds: “Since 19 out of the state’s 20 LG chairmen have declared emphatically that they have indeed been receiving their allocations from the Federation Account and other funds, they should render an account to the electorate.” This, the editorial says, “is imperative as residents complain frequently of poor roads, lack of potable water, broken primary health care facilities, and general hardship.”
Meanwhile, beyond demanding accountability from LG chairmen, the editorial contains ugly imputations against the Ogun State Government. It desperately wishes that the baseless and less cognitive narrative against the governor were true and is, therefore, a smokescreen. The impression, subtle but illogical, is creating a vague conclusion that only the alleged hijacking of LG funds by the Dapo Abiodun government can explain whatever complaints the Ogun residents referenced have about the performance of Ogun LG chairmen.
It is, therefore, important to put issues in perspective. In the first place, it is a no-brainer that the present arrangement between the Federal Government and states concerning LGs is an aberration. In a federal structure, a union between the federating units and central government explicitly states that local governments should be under the purview of the states.
A situation where states have to go through the National Assembly before they can create LGs is indeed a blunder of thought and inimical to constitutional democracy, but regrettably, that is what obtains in Nigeria presently emplaced by ethnically unbalanced, criminally oppressive and horrendously skewed military administrations.
For instance, Lagos State decades ago had only 20 LGs, although with the same, if not higher, population as Kano, which was given 44 LGs. When Jigawa was excised out of Kano, Kano still retained 44 LGs, but Lagos was callously left with 20 LGs. The implication is that as long as LGs are means of sharing federal revenue, there will be problems. It is, therefore, sheer hypocrisy and mischief to single out Ogun State for whatever developmental lacuna is observed in the country.
Without mincing words, the skewed structure across the country was not imposed by the governor of Ogun State; it is something that had been in place decades before he came to power. For another, ignoring the fact that the structure in place now at the third tier of government cannot deliver the development that Nigeria needs, the editorial has a subtext of assumed wrongdoing by the Abiodun government as the only possible explanation for complaints about LG performance.
If the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation said the 36 states of the federation received N296bn, and LGs got N218bn for June 2023, it is fair to ask what came to Ogun State out of this figure, and what the wage bill for first line charges was. In asking this question, we are not shying away from whatever corruption exists in the LGs and its impact on their performance, which is the thrust of the editorial: we are making the analysis more nuanced.
The point must be enunciated that it was the unionists in the LGs that agitated against the misappropriation of the LG funds and the representations they made to the Federal Government led to the creation of the Joint Account Allocation Committee. JAAC is, therefore, a creation of law. The essence is to identify first-line charges before thinking of any developmental issue in the LGs.
Now, we can not ignore the maladministration that had bedevilled LG operations in the past. Some chairmen engaged in indiscriminate employment of workers, making the LG system an empowerment scheme. That invariably increased the burden of paying salaries. That is why many of the LGs are today shouldering burdens that are quite beyond their capacity. By law, the bloated workforce must be paid. What JAAC, which is not under the control of state governments, does is take care of first-line charges, leaving whatever remains to take care of developmental programmes. Out of these first-line charges, a security vote of about N3m goes to every LG chairman, aside from many other means of generating revenue internally.
In Ogun State, available empirical evidence indicates that in 2020, N43.121bn was budgeted for first-line charges, while N34.750bn was received from the Federation Account for the 20 LGs, leaving a deficit of N6.619bn. In 2021, the LGs got N38.723bn, while payment for first-line charges was put at N47.845bn.
In 2022, the LGs got N48.074bn from the Federation Account, whereas first-line charges amounted to N54.182bn, leaving a deficit of N17.4bn by January 2023, covered by the state government. These are the facts, regardless of the qualms expressed by naysayers. During the COVID-19 crisis, most of the LGs did not pay PAYEE tax because of the shortfall in federal allocations, and deducting this tax after the crisis does not amount to diversion in any form. Governor Abiodun is not a signatory to the LG accounts and could not have diverted any LG funds.
Now, if the allocations to the LGs while the COVID-19 pandemic raged were not even enough to cover first-line charges, and had to be augmented by the state government, it is a no-brainer that the present LG structure cannot guarantee the kind of development envisaged by Nigerians. This is without prejudice to the need to prosecute any LG official found to be engaged in corruption in Ogun State or anywhere in the country.
It is interesting that up till today, and quite curiously, nobody has ever asked why the staff of Ijebu East LG have been silent on the allegations made by Adedayo. They are silent because they are receiving their salaries and consider the impeached chairman a man of many colours.
From all indications, Adedayo only cast aspersions on the governor for nothing. The PUNCH editorial is asking for justice, but surely justice is not one-way. It is not for the person who raised the alarm alone; it also requires fairness for those he maligned, except we are reducing justice to those who level allegations against a governor without any concrete evidence.
Moreso, justice embodies fairness to the public, which deserves to have the truth and nothing else. Suggesting, as the editorial does, that the 19 Ogun LGs erred/lied when they stated that they were receiving their allocations is most uncharitable. The innuendoes can not be lost on any reasonable individual. We must ensure that justice is served always and some people are not unduly maligned. Justice demands fairness to all.
Akinmade is Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to Ogun State Governor
