Governors As Thieves?

Recently, President Muhammadu Buhari, while addressing members of the Senior Executive Course 44 (2022) of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), on a visit at the State House, accused state governors of stealing allocations to Local Government administrations in the country. He went ahead to present a graphic detail of instances of such perfidy, including a personal experience, and blamed such high-level misconduct for the lack of development at that level of government.

To most Nigerians, the President is merely making official what has been public knowledge for a long time beginning from the mistake of a joint account for the states and local governments. It is that same mistake that is responsible for the landslide victories in local government elections by the ruling parties in the states. That is, where elections are held at all. Otherwise, the governor just posts his hangers-on to those local governments as interim administrations to oversee the looting and pillaging.

But we are not about to applaud the President for this comment which, in our opinion, calls to question his own attitude to the fight against corruption. It is instructive to note that corruption and the fight to eliminate it where it manifests featured prominently in Buhari’s campaign promises. And now, at the eve of his departure as President, he is telling the rest of us what we already know as if it was the most note-worthy scientific discovery.

What Nigerians are expecting him to tell them is what efforts his administration made in the last seven years plus or is making in the remaining months of his administration, to behead the monster. The two governors that were arrested, prosecuted and jailed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) whom he granted pardon and released through the instrumentality of prerogative of mercy, may have, during their tenure in office, stolen these funds meant for the Councils. That is one proof of how corruption is receiving a presidential attention.

In narrating that personal experience, the President ought to have gone the whole hog to tell the nation what happened to that governor who not only stole but also encouraged a local government official to lie and cover up for him.  From indications, possibly for political reasons, he may have been given just a shake of the head as a sign of disapproval in a situation that required drastic measures to serve as a lesson to any one nursing similar ideas. What the President told Nigerians was that he caught a thief, a person looting public treasury and, for personal reasons, let him get away with it.

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Already, some governors are taking him up on the allegation and even daring him to publish the names of those involved in the malfeasance. That, as an assignment for a president, on all counts, is a piece of cake. And Nigerians are waiting to see the day these high-level rogues elected into office will be made to have their day in court or, at least, at the bar of public opinion.

On this page, we have consistently argued that a joint account for state and local governments is a terribly bad idea that should be discontinued forthwith. For one good reason, it is an official encouragement to steal funds constitutionally allocated for development of the rural areas where a majority of Nigerians reside. Furthermore, the argument that the local government structure is subservient to the states is not acceptable. The states have no business organizing elections into local government offices because they have a vested interest that encourages them to manipulate the process. Election into those offices should be conducted by an independent body outside the control of the states.

We have also made a case for local government autonomy, a status that will enable them to be self-accounting and, hopefully, close the gap exploited by governors to under-develop and impoverish the rural populace. Maybe, this is the time for that matter to be fully examined and determined.

Unfortunately, in our opinion, the legislature in the states are not doing enough to realise and correct this error that is draining the soul of local government administration in the country. Worse, is the politicization of constitution amendment that would have decisively put the governors in their rightful place as far as this issue is concerned.

In the considered opinion of this newspaper, the matter that has been brought to the fore by no less a person than the President himself must be followed up by Nigerians who we expect to demand for action. We suggest that this should commence with the naming and shaming of the light-fingered governors. They are thieves who are not fit for public office and ought to be made to face the wrath of the law.