As Local Govts Commence The Opening Of Accounts With The CBN, It’s Chairmen Must Prioritize Prudence Over Politics
The Oasis Reporters
January 25, 2025
There is currently an air of high optimism swirling in local governments in most states of Nigeria due to the freedom granted the third tier of government, the local government to receive their allocations directly from the Central Bank of Nigeria, thus bypassing many toxic and thieving governors. This is freedom for them which should not be taken for granted.
Starting this January, they are to begin to receive their federal allocations directly. That would no longer pass through the state governors according to a report by
PUNCH newspapers.
This is unfortunately bad news for the governors. This is probably why they are allegedly against the proposed new tax laws because it will further reduce the money they earn from the federal government and as such they will not have much to loot, asserted a political observer.
This is a great reform without any noise. This reform will not only bring development to the grassroots, it will whittle down the larger than life and emperor -like postures of some state governors.
“With the anticipated law mandating local government elections to be conducted by INEC, it is safe to sing the dirge of reckless and anti people governor’s powers”, said a commentator on social media.
Anyone who travels through the length and breadth of Nigeria touring every nook and cranny would easily sift where true compassionate and courageous governance occurs as different from ‘chaff’ and desperately wicked leadership manifesting with unforgiving tribal or religious wickedness.
Take leadership in Delta, Edo and a few other states, one cannot help but commend the mature political leadership in those areas. It is just a side matter that their politics may not be perfect, but they are inclusive. Even governorship goes round the three senatorial districts perhaps every 4 or 8 years. Development spreads round.
On a personal note, I commend James Ibori. What impressed me about him in 1999 to 2007 as governor of Delta State was that despite being from the majority Urhobo ethnic group in Delta State, he tarred practically every road to a large extent in the minority Isoko local governments for instance. It was not so before he came into power. As well as other local governments whose languages he probably didn’t understand.
Ibori’s successor was Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan ( an Itsekiri ethnic minority) who continued from where Ibori stopped. The last road he constructed and commissioned before leaving office was to his riverine community that was seeing a car, drive in there for the first time after over 7 years of his governance in 2014 to 2015. Hitherto, the people commuted only in dug out wooden canoes.
Quite impressive, wouldn’t you rather say?
Governance keeps circulating round.
Yet going through the history of development and governance in some other states, one cannot help but shed tears at what is going on, especially where governance is in the suffocating grip and stranglehold of only one desperately wicked tribe with selfish leadership mindset.
After a visit to the historical Kafanchan town in Southern Kaduna, tears would almost stream down faces.
The only seeming development project there is probably the College of Education that was established around the 70s, making it over 50 years old. But the infrastructure there is not only rustic, it seems desperate, thus making the institution look like a glorified Junior Secondary school.
Especially when you step into other citadels of learning in other areas that are in the favoured non Christian or non minorities tribal areas.
It’s a crying shame.
As it is, no Southern Kaduna person can even aspire to be a deputy governor. The people are pushed into the status of second class citizens who must be made to live desperate lives. Or perhaps the leadership would prefer that they get frustrated and leave their ancestral lands.
In most of those states with toxic one tribe forever governance, the myopic leadership that gets thrown up have no idea of building bridges or lifting each other up.
No compassion, no courage, no optimism, and no inspiration. Everything is drab.
Worse still, those same states with desperate tribal leadership mindset almost always fail spectacularly at basic governance standards.
There was one failure of a tribalistic governor and towards the end of his two term tenure, he faced the press who grilled him on why he was unable to pay basic salaries of workers for a few years, the man glibly lied and dribbled the problem to some amorphous Fulani herdsmen militia that prevented farmers from accessing their farms and his government could not collect enough taxes to pay salaries of civil servants, who incidentally are over 70% of his tribesmen and women.
But there are other minority local governments that had little or no security worries, great food producers who have virtually no roads for trailers to ply on in order to access farm depots and evacuate their produce to needed markets.
Such minority local governments have only motorbikes as mode of transportation.
How many gallons of palm oil, tubers of cassava or yams can a motorcycle carry to the nearest city market, perhaps hundreds of kilometers away ?
It is sad.
As local government chairmen or finance officers line up to receive their allocations directly, I’ll urge you all to build roads where they don’t exist and access all communities especially in those states with toxic tribal governance. Buy a few tractors and graders first. Fix basic infrastructure. Collect taxes and be prudent in expenditure. Do not imitate the toxic governors in becoming lords of the manor.
We will be watching you.
Let me conclude this essay with excerpts from the eulogy delivered by Chief Akintola on the occasion of Chief Awolowo’s 50th birthday anniversary in March 1959.
. Akintola said, “inter-alia:
To Chief Awolowo, passivity is a bane and inaction an anathema. How could it be otherwise to a life that thrives on industry and to a man with fanatical faith in hard work? That was why he made himself a terror to the demagogues and Mountebanks who, with neither a chart nor a rudder believed that they could steer the Nigerian ship of state to its destination….No pilot has a clearer vision and none a keener sense of mission than Chief Awolowo…In the political changes which took place in Nigeria from 1947 onwards, Dr. Azikiwe has been spasmodic and casual; Sir Ahmadu Bello has been leisurely and carefree, but Awolowo has been constant and calculating…To know Chief Awolowo as a man is to respect him. It has been my pride and pleasure to know him. He is by every standard a genius. His unimpeachable character, his faith in God, his confidence in his fellowmen, his personal devotion to duty, and his loyalty…have conspired together to make him a great pillar of strength. He never lets a friend down…As a political leader, Chief Awolowo is miles ahead of his colleagues. His sincerity of purpose, his democratic leadership, and inspiring example are yet to be equaled by any of the leaders of other major political parties in the country…Awolowo is the nearest approximation to Mahatma Gandhi. He is a good blend of Gandhi’s philosophy and Nehru’s dynamism and the only hope for democracy in Africa”.
[ Ladoke Akintola, “Awo: The Path-Finder”, Daily Service, 6 March 1959.
Please be inspired. The hoe is in your hands. Hot the ground running.
Till the soil.
Greg Abolo.
gregabolo@gmail.com
