Excerpt: Abubakar Ahmed has said most governors are holding local government elections just to access federal funds, not for genuine purposes.

Former member of the House of Representatives, Abubakar Ahmed, has accused state governors of conducting rushed local government elections to maintain uninterrupted access to monthly federal allocations despite a landmark Supreme Court judgment granting local government autonomy.

Speaking in an interview with ARISE News on Friday, Ahmed said the governors’ sudden interest in conducting local elections is not driven by democratic intent but by financial self-preservation. 

“Most of these state governors are rushing to conduct local government elections, because that will entitle them to continue receiving the federal allocation,” he stated.

The former lawmaker explained that since the Supreme Court’s ruling, which granted political, financial, and administrative autonomy to local governments, governors have been scrambling to install their loyalists to retain indirect control of the funds.

“There is no local government that is getting directly from the federal allocation any amount less than 100 million,” Ahmed noted. “So they [governors] just appoint their cronies, their boys, some of them are even dropouts that cannot speak good English, as local government administrators. How can they manage the hundreds of millions that goes directly?”

Ahmed criticised the lack of preparation by many local governments to function independently, citing the requirement from the Central Bank for audited accounts to open direct allocation accounts. 

“They have never operated the amount by themselves. It is being operated by the state accountant general under the tutelage of the state government,” he said.

He described the federal government’s current posture as contradictory. “They are giving with the right hand and still collecting with the left hand,” he said, pointing to systemic obstacles that have made full local government autonomy difficult to implement.

Ahmed called on President Bola Tinubu’s administration to take bolder action, suggesting the declaration of a state of emergency on local government autonomy and the creation of a special purpose vehicle to enforce compliance. 

“So, if the federal government is really serious, they will have at least put some palliative to alleviate the obstacle. They can just declare a state of emergency in the local government autonomy,” he urged.

The ex-lawmaker warned that unless urgent reforms are made, governors will continue to manipulate the system to feather their political and financial nests, while local governments remain structurally dependent and democratically hollow.

Chioma Kalu

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