The recent directive by the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) barring state governments from tampering with local governments’ allocations is a welcome development. It is even long overdue. Nigerians had long expected this to happen considering the flagrant abuse of the council funds by state governors for some years now.
For years, the governors have used the councils’ funds the way they like and willfully neglected the development of the councils. The third tier of government, which is recognized by the 1999 Constitution, has been bastardized and rendered impotent by state governors throughout the country.
The councils have ceased to be the centres of grassroots development they were conceived to be. Most of the councils’ headquarters look so decrepit and abandoned. Therefore, the NFIU order which takes effect from June 1, 2019 is a decisive step towards ensuring financial autonomy for the emasculated 774 local governments in the country. As from the June 1 deadline, all local governments’ allocations must go straight to their respective bank accounts.
No doubt, the NFIU’s action must have been prompted by the misappropriation of the funds allocated to the local councils by the state governments through the State Joint Local Government Accounts (SJLGA). The NFIU’s action was also necessitated by the threats from international financial watchdogs to sanction Nigeria as a result of abuse of the local governments’ funds.
The NFIU has also realized that abuse of the SJLGA poses serious corruption, money laundering and security threats at the grassroots levels and to the entire financial system and the entire country. Under the new directive, the SJLGA which subsists now can only be for the receipt of allocations from the federation account and not for disbursement.
To ensure immediate compliance with the new directive, the NFIU has warned that any bank that flouts the order will be sanctioned. What the NFIU has done is in compliance with Section 162 (6-8) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) which states that “Each State shall maintain a special account to be called “State Joint Local Government Account” 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.
“Each State shall pay to local government councils in its area of jurisdiction such proportion of its total revenue on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the National Assembly. The amount standing to the credit of local government councils of a State shall be distributed among the local government councils of the State on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the House of Assembly of the State.”
The SJLGA is meant to serve as a collection account which does not give state governors the power to disburse the allocations the way they like. It is worth recalling that during the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency, the councils were given direct allocations from Abuja for some years but it was later stopped.
But the operation of SJLGA has been detrimental to the absence of government at the council level and may have contributed to the groaning poverty and rising crimes and general insecurity across the country. In the absence of elected council chairmen and councilors in most states of the federation, there is need to ensure that elections should be held in those councils without elected officials before the NFIU’s directive can be effective.
In fact, there is need to amend any law that may affect the implementation of the NFIU’s order. Section 7 (1) of the Constitution states that “The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this Constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the Government of every State shall subject to section 8 of this Constitution, ensure their existence under a Law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils.”
Section 7 (3) of the Constitution states that “It shall be the duty of a local government council within the State to participate in economic planning and development of the area referred to in subsection (2) of this section and to this end an economic planning board shall be established by a Law enacted by the House of Assembly of the State.” Unfortunately, the provisions of the foregoing laws are never observed by the state governors.
This can explain why development has been stalled at the grassroots and why criminals have taken over some areas. While what the NFIU has done is good, it is still a palliative to one of the diseases afflicting the country. The nation’s other diseases cannot be cured by the NFIU.
To cure our national ailments, which go beyond tampering with the councils’ funds, the country must be restructured as being canvassed by eminent Nigerians and groups. There is no running away from that hard fact of our socio-economic existence. The rising insecurity across the country is a symptom of a failing system. The escalating banditry and kidnapping can only take place in a sick system.
Until the country is restructured and run like a truly federal system, each federating unit according to its pace as we have in the first republic, the nation’s woes will continue unabated. Anything being done now is a way to postpone the doomsday. The centralized policing system currently in operation cannot guarantee adequate security across the country.
The United States from where we borrowed the present system of government and missed to emulate some of its ethos has federal, state and county police. Why are we foot-dragging over the decentralization of the nation’s police? Why are some people afraid of resource control when every state has one or more minerals to exploit and pay royalty to the Federal government? Why are we afraid of our shadows?
However, the good news is that every state can do well in agriculture and even have enough food for its sustenance and export. Why are we not investing more in agriculture? The nation’s overdependence on oil is killing its industrialization and development initiative. The less we think of oil, the better for all of us and the economy of this giant of Africa.
As individuals think of where they want to be in ten or twenty years time, nations also do the same and dream of where they want to be in the next forty or fifty years. Where do our leaders want this country to be in the next 50 years? Our leaders should read, think and dream where they are taking us in the next 50 years. All the grandstanding by politicians over 2023 when we are yet to deliver on 2019 cannot take us anywhere.