Governors are excessively killed LG system – Buhari laments

President Muhammadu Buhari, has lamented the ways the Nigerian governors have destroyed the Local Government system in the country.

The president said this while responding to a question during an exclusive interview with Arise TV on Thursday.

The president said the Local Government areas is the branch of government closest to the people and to identify the root of their problems and identify crooks within their environment and apprehend the criminals but the governors have destroyed the system.

Buhari said the Federal government always sends the allocation to the local government areas but the state governors pay a stipulated amount to the council committee after such chairmen had signed their full monthly allocation, which they then hand over to their governors.

The President also blamed the Council chairmen for keeping quiet while the governors collected the money for them.

“We will send N300m as allocation to a Local Government, one Governor will ask the LG Chairman to sign that he collected N300m but he will give him N100m and the Chairman will keep quiet…..” Buhari said

Buhari said “two South West Governors came to me to say cattle rearers are destroying farms in their states, I asked them what happened to the grassroots’ security panels from Traditional Rulers to Local Governments who meet regularly to identify the root of their problems and identify crooks within their environment and apprehend the criminals.

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“Who destroyed this system? Go back and fix it, give your people sense of belongings.

“I don’t like it when people campaign to become Governors and people trusted them with their votes and after winning, they can’t perform, they’re trying to push responsibilities to others. ……..we have three tiers of Government, Federal, State and Local.

“We have killed the Local Government totally. We will send N300m as allocation to a Local Government, one Governor will ask the LG Chairman to sign that he collected N300m but he will give him N100m and the Chairman will keep quiet…..is that how we will continue???”, Buhari lamented.

Recall that, the 1976 local government reform that created the third-tier of government was aptly aimed at bringing democracy and good governance closer to the grassroots. It aptly made provision for the election of councilors and chairmen who are people well known in their communities and who can be easily accessed by the people to know the needs of the various communities.

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But with the military incursion into governance, the local government system was dismantled like other democratic structures, leading to the collapse of the system. Military leaders began to appoint council officials who in turn owed allegiance only to those who appointed them, rather than to the people they were meant to serve.

The 1999 Constitution which ushered in the present democratic dispensation though granted a sort of autonomy to the local government councils, but the governors never allowed the autonomy to function. They hijacked council funds from Abuja, appropriate them as they deem fit and released pittance to the council leaders.

The governors exploited the state/local government joint allocation policy, which gave the state governors the power to control local government funds.

This policy has rendered the local government system ineffective as the governors control the funds and decide what goes to the local governments.

In some states, the governors pay a stipulated amount to the caretaker committee after such chairmen had signed their full monthly allocation, which they then hand over to their governors. This, perhaps, is why most governors have refused to conduct local government elections which would enable the elected chairmen to access their allocations directly from Abuja.

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