Rural poverty, insecurity deepen on misuse of LG funds

The endless battles over who controls local government funds continue to take toll on rural dwellers as poverty and insecurity intensify.

BDSUNDAY Investigations revealed that despite sharing over N15trillion in the last twelve years, there has been a sharp increase in rural urban migration as life practically becomes “meaningless” in Nigeria’s erstwhile bustling rural areas.

Crises of underdevelopment, poverty, insecurity have become the major push factors responsible for the recent high rates of migration from the rural areas to the urban centres.

Crises of local government administration in Nigeria is fueled by their pauperisation, through the State and Local Government Joint Account system (SLGJA), operated by state governments to control resources at the area councils.

Despite persistent efforts by the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) to wriggle the local governments out of the quagmire, states continue to rely on Section 162, subsections 5 to 8 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended), to deprive the local government councils of their funds.

According to Section (5), “The amount standing to the credit of local government councils in the Federation Account shall also be allocated to the state for the benefit of their local government councils on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the National Assembly.

(6) 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.

(7) 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.

(8) The amount standing to the credit of local government councils of a state shall be distributed among the local government councils of that State on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the House of Assembly of the State.

Provisions in Section 7 of the same Constitution guarantees a system of local government by democratically elected local government councils and assigns powers to State governments to establish structures for good governance at the grassroots level.

Thus, while Section 7 (6) (a) & (b) of the Constitution mandates the National Assembly to make provisions for statutory allocation of public revenue to them, the same section empowers the State Houses of Assembly to do same with respect to allocation of resources within the state.

The Joint Accounts Allocation Committee (JAAC) at the state level is used to make huge deductions which further put pressure on resources on major cities.

The Act historically states that: any amount which shall be set out by the committee at any time for distribution from the amount standing to the credit of Local Government Councils in the Joint Account shall be distributed among the local government councils by the Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) in the following manner; 40percent on the basis of equality, 25percent on the basis of population, 20percent on the basis of primary school enrollment, 10percent on the basis of internally generated revenue, 5percent on the basis of landmass.

The deductions provided for under the Joint Account Law tagged ‘First-Line-Charges’ include the following; Local Government Education Authority gross salary, Local Government Education Authority overhead, Total Education Fund payable, Pension Fund allowance and Training fund.

Suleiman Lamorde, a legal expert, who spoke to BDSUNDAY on the development, called on the National Assembly to “explore every means possible to set the local governments free from state governments’ control.”

According to him, “They will continue to frustrate efforts at achieving decentralisation and devolution of powers and consequently, development at the grassroots, by holding tenaciously to local government funds, unless something drastic is done.”

Suleiman noted that the 1999 Constitution as amended recorded a “fundamental error by placing Local Governments under the control of state governments,” adding that “it must have to be rectified if democracy is to be enshrined in our local governments.”

A recent data sourced from Dataphyte website show that states and local governments in Nigeria raked in about N15.5 trillion (N15,505,489,701,816) in twelve years.

The report is based on analysis of the 12-year data sourced from the websites of the National Bureau of Statistics and the Office of Accountant-General of the Federation, covering 2007 to 2018.

The data further indicated that “an average of N20 billion accrued to local governments in Nigeria between 2007 to 2018 with the least Council having a total of N12.8 billion and the highest Council, having N56.3 billion in the same period.”

The study however, stated statistics are difficult to confirm, as local government chairpersons did not confirm the amount they received from the state government and constituents cannot attest to the exact value of the services they received from their local government.”

The monthly LGA transfer is the statutory allocation distributed by the Federation Account Allocation Committee. While Abuja Municipal with the highest allocation has had a monthly average of 391.1 million naira (N391,103,922) or an annual average of 4.69 billion naira (N4,693,247,062), Ifedayo Local Government in Osun State, with the

least allocation, has accrued a monthly average of 88.56 million naira (N88,560,331) or an annual average of 1.06 billion naira (1,062,723,969). The question that naturally should follow is how transparent, accountable and prudent have the state governments been with all these funds?

Despite these resources however, rural areas in Nigeria has continued to witness high rate of poverty induced insecurity, resulting forced migration to “safer” urban areas.

The development puts pressures on agriculture as most farms have been deserted on the increasing threats of kidnappings, rapes and killings by those suspected to Fulani migrant herdsmen.