The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has exposed how governors of states successfully blackmail the centre government into halting direct payment of monthly allocations to the 774 constitutionally recognized local government councils in the country. Atiku said he was Vice President of the country at the time and was officially saddled with the responsibility of overseeing local government affairs.
Atiku made this known on Sunday at the contentious Arise TV Town Hall Meeting debate for presidential candidates of political parties.
The PDP presidential candidate spoke against the backdrop of President Muhammadu Buhari’s accusations against governors that he accused of stealing allocations of local government councils in their respective states last week.
President Buhari further accused the state governors of collecting money on behalf of council areas from the federal government, and only remitting half of such funds to the councils’ elected chairmen.
Speaking at the Arise TV event on the situation, Atiku narrated how governors used constitutional loopholes to stop direct monthly funds allocation of to local government councils across the country.
The former Vice President between 1999-2007 observed that Nigeria has a “fundamental flaw in our legislation” as far as local government funding is concerned and demanded that such obvious constitutional oversight must be fixed.
He declared: “When I assumed office in 1999, what was handed over to me was the local government administration. When it was handed over to me, I gave instructions to the accountant general that all local government allocations should be transferred to the local governments straight. After implementing that policy for nine months, the governors protested that that was not constitutional.
“So we looked at the constitution, and they said there was supposed to be a joint account at the state level where local government funds should be transferred and also the state governments were supposed to put a certain percentage of their revenue into that account, and it (the local government funds) was then moved to that joint account.
“Then, the local governments started getting their funding through the state joint accounts and that is where we have problems. In that process, some state governments started taking part in the local government finances. Some said they were going to run universities with the state governments, some said local governments should contribute to certain projects in the state. At the end of the day, the funds were being depleted and the local governments were left with no funding, and in fact, it has gone to virtually nothing now.
“We must look at the laws and see how we can make these local governments independent and protect them when funds are sent from the federal government. I think there’s a major flaw in our laws regarding that.”
