LGs and the NFIU threat
The threat issued by the Nigeria Financial Intelligent Unit (NFIU) that any commercial bank that allows transaction from any local government account without the monthly allocation first reaching their account will be sanctioned and that the transaction per day should not exceed ₦500,000, is a welcome development. It is imperative that the government had good […]
The threat issued by the Nigeria Financial Intelligent Unit (NFIU) that any commercial bank that allows transaction from any local government account without the monthly allocation first reaching their account will be sanctioned and that the transaction per day should not exceed ₦500,000, is a welcome development. It is imperative that the government had good intention but constitutionally it is chained by the section 162, subsection 5, which stipulated that “any amount standing to the credit of local government councils in the Federation Account shall also be allocated to the states for the benefit of their local government councils on such term and in such manner as may be prescribed by the National Assembly” and subsection 6 of same constitution pontificated that “each state shall maintain a special account to be called ‘State Joint Local Government Account’ (SJLGA) into which shall be paid all allocations to the local government councils of the State from the Federation Account and from the Government of the State”. The joint account system stated by the constitution rendered the local government across the country ineffective and inoperative.
It is an open secret that all successive governors from, 1999 up till date, milked and are still milking the local allocation besides their monthly allocation. In fact, even in retirement some of them are milking machine. Any rebellious local government chairman who claims to be smart or wise is summarily dealt with by the almighty governors who see themselves as the alpha and omega as far as the issue of local government is concern. Invariably, all the successive governors have wittingly or unwittingly immensely contributed to the current decadence at the grassroots level across the country. I may be wrong by my proposition, but I believe there is a nexus between present societal ills of kidnapping and banditry that is ravaging the land. Since the federal allocation could not trickle down to the downtrodden masses at the periphery, the local economy became moribund and the human needs propelled otherwise many passive citizens to resort to illegality to make ends meet.
Information filtering in from this fiefdoms (Local Governments) shows that most governors summon their appointee chairmen to sign the monthly financial allocation on the paper without releasing the money to them for grass root projects. Some of these governors go as far as awarding fictitious local government contracts to themselves and their cronies and then compel chairmen to sign cheque or else lose their positions. Recent effort by the National Assembly to address the issue of local government autonomy as the tripod leg of Nigerian federation was truncated by the overbearing influence of governors who used all their resources to prevent the address and passage of the bill by the parliaments. Nigerians are aware that the National Assembly superintendent and some senators are an accomplice on this issue. Unexpectedly some of them have lost their fiefdom to opposition; now the chicken has gone home to roost.
Then back to the issue of enforcement champion by the NFIU, the starting point should be a bill emanating from executive arm of government to neutralize joint account by State and Local Government for individual account by all constitutionally recognized local government across the country. After this step, enforcement and monitoring could be done by the agencies saddled with the responsibility to oversee fiscal spending of the rural communities. Without this constitutional amendment, all the threat by NFIU is nothing but an empty threat that will soon fizzle out in the face of litigation that will be sponsored by the governors against NFIU for meddling and interfering in their constitutional role and assignment.
The non-functionality of local government is of great concern to well-meaning Nigerians, but most of our feudal lords (Governors) never want it to function. Some of them struggle to become governor to help themselves, their families and friends with common wealth and not to serve the people. For this administration to gain it rhythms and respect of the fellow compatriots, it must use all humanly possible means to woo and lobby the incoming 9th National Assembly to fine-tune and amend the local government financial autonomy with immediate alacrity to salvage and secure local government from this endanger species who have become cogwheel of Nigeria progress.
Rotimi S. Bello, Abuja