Chairman of the Senate Committee on Services and Senator Representing Kogi West Zone, Sunday Steve Karimi, says the National Assembly fully backs President Bola Tinubu’s admonition on practical and unfettered financial autonomy for the local government tier of government. He said the parliament will enact relevant laws to compel strict adherence to the Supreme Court judgment on fiscal autonomy for the third tier of government.
Karimi who spoke when he hosted his constituents during the yuletide break, recalled the landmark ruling of the Supreme Court of Nigeria of July 25, 2024, which directed seamless federal allocation of funds to the 774 councils. He quoted the judgement to have said that “state governors’ control over local government resources as unconstitutional, while also voiding caretaker committees as illegal.” Senator Karimi observed that the judgement aimed to “strengthen grassroots democracy and governance by ensuring that allocations go directly to elected officials, without state interference.” He recalled that the overall aim of the ruling is also to improve service delivery at the critical local government level of the governance pyramid.
Despite this very clear, explicit and unambiguous declaration by the highest court in the land, however, Karimi observed that some states have continued to disregard and disrespect the ruling. According to Karimi, “cognisant of the errant conduct of some state governors on the issue, President Tinubu warned at the recent National Executive Committee meeting of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) a fortnight ago, that he may be compelled to issue an Executive Order to whip defaulting governors into line.” The President, Senator Karimi observed, had exercised restraint for so long with non-conformists, despite the fact that he has the powers to impose on them to do what is right.
Said Karimi: “The National Assembly will prioritise the matter of the non-adherence of certain governors across the broad spectrum, to the subsisting Supreme Court ruling on local government financial autonomy. We will back the President with relevant laws which will be retroactively effective. The laws will track the kleptomania and squandermania of governors who have been looting the commonwealth of the people of Nigeria. They will be prosecuted, compelled to make returns and punished for undermining the wellbeing of the generality of the people, by wilfully stealing what rightly belongs to them.”
Speaking further, Karimi said that trillions of naira had been pilfered from the resources of Nigerians by gluttonous governors. His words: “There is general consensus that no administration in contemporary history has made as much resources available to states and local government areas as the Tinubu government, but the people are barely feeling the impact in many places. During the screening of service chiefs recently, the chief of Defence staff noted that not allowing LGAs to function has contributed to insecurity in the country, creating lots of ungoverned space in the country. Some governors, their godfathers and members of their cabals, put a knife on local government funds every month, as their own “dessert” after meals.”
This, the Kogi West Senator noted, “is why the local government system is dysfunctional and incapable of rendering the most basic services to their constituents. It is the reason many parts of the country have become dangerous ungoverned spaces and operational bases for terrorists. Governors who have been wilfully denying the people the resources for development, their aiders and abetters, and their rabid defenders in the media will meet their comeuppance when the parliament enables the appropriate legislations.”
According to Senator Karimi, in some states of the federation, what is being done is outright stealing of LGAs allocation. While local government funds are transferred to the LGAs bank accounts, the state then operates voucher racketeering schemes, where documents are processed for fictitious jobs that are never executed, while the relevant supervisory councillors and chairmen are compelled to sign and approve such fraudulent vouchers which run into billions of naira monthly. No jobs are carried out, while funds are looted steadily and regularly. Chairmen dare not complain for the fear of their lives because the ruling gangs in some states are deadly.This type of fraud shouldn’t be happening in the 21st century in Nigeria.
