Agbo-Agbowa in Ibeshe Kingdom
Right from the entrance of Agbo-Agbowa community in Ibeshe Kingdom, Ikorodu, Igbogbo Bayeiku Local Council Development Area of Lagos State, the roads are life-threatening. The Chairman of the Community Development Association, Alhaji Ahmed Abiodun Salami, said: “The roads are terrible. We find it difficult to go out and return to our community, especially when it rains.”
The community’s executives said they have complained to the LG chairperson and got a promise that something would be done after the last election.
Hon. Babajimi Benson, representing Ikorodu Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, also promised to assist the community. Another disturbing need in the Agbo-Agbowa Community is a health centre.
Chief Gbolahan Ayoola Aderaloye, Baale of Agbo-Agbowa-Ibeshe Kingdom, said: “Our community has started building a health centre, we have medical equipment donated by our people, but we need government assistance to complete it and fill it with medical personnel. “Agbo-Agbowa is the largest community in Ibeshe. We go to Ebute or Ikorodu town for treatment, which is about 10 kilometres from here.”
Buttressing the Baale’s point, Salami said: “The former chairman of the CDA used to be called at odd hours to assist in taking pregnant women, who had fallen into labour, to hospital. Three times or more, the women had given birth on the way.”
The Secretary of the CDA, Adebiyi Adeniyi, said: “We have three transformers, but we need three more, this time from the government, to service other residents.” Adeniyi mentioned that the community had been grading the bad roads for years, but realised that it needs massive construction, which cost is beyond their financial capability. He added that they also need a secondary school.
The community, while enumerating their challenges, also thanked the Lagos State Government for coming to their aid during severe flooding periods. They recalled that before government interventions, homes used to get flooded during rainfall and residents fret and were anxious over the security of lives and property. According to them, after the government channelled the water to a nearby canal, they stopped experiencing flooding.
Mercy Land Estate, Atan
Mercy Land Estate, Atan, Ipaja-Ayobo LCDA has major challenges. Indeed, people have often been heard saying that the “Ayobo axis is prone to flooding.” According to a landlord in Mercy Land Estate, Phase 1, Amos Adejo, issues needing government’s interventions are roads, clean water, drainage system, flooding and police posts.
Adejo explained that whenever it rains, homes get flooded, which he attributed to poor drainage. He said: “Let the Ministry of Environment come here to check and take immediate actions to ameliorate the suffering of Nigerians. The truth is that flooding of people’s homes amounts to a threat to their lives and also causes destruction of their property and it could cause building collapse.”
This reporter gathered that flooding was a recurring nightmare in Mercy Land Community, but has worsened over the years. While many residents like Adejo attributed it to poor drainage, residents of the Babatunde Egungboun community opined that the flooding in their community was exacerbated by the Enaro Energy building, which is still under construction. They claimed the building had blocked access channels for water to flow. It was also gathered that relevant authorities have been alerted about the flooding situation in Mercy Land, but the residents are still waiting for responses.
The Lagos State and its LGs boast of enviable Federation Account Allocation Committee allocations and Internally Generated Revenues, but the wealth is not reflected at the grassroots. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2021, Lagos State had the highest Internally Generated Revenue with N267,232,774,434.06 in H1 2021. Dataphyte stated that each state in Nigeria, between January and June 2022, together received a whooping N1.370 trillion. Lagos State in just six months got over N80 billion. Now, that sum is just in six months.
According to Alhaji Kayode Jamiu, a building contractor in Abuja, who also builds health centres for LGs, the sum of N80 billion is enough to build 70 standard health centres at the cost of N100 million each.
Dataphyte also mentioned that in 2021, LGs in Lagos State got N114,852,539,394, while in 2022, they received N96,440,176,948. This means that within two years, the LG councils got N211 billion, enough to revamp the infrastructural deficit at the grassroots.
Dataphyte stated: “A review of FAAC documents published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), shows that in 2021, a sum of N1.719 trillion was disbursed as LGs allocation. The highest allocation was received by Lagos, with a sum of N114 billion disbursed through the year, the lowest allocation went to Bayelsa State with N20 billion received by the state. In 2022, the sum of N1.412 trillion was shared between January and August. Lagos got the highest allocation of N96 billion, while Ebonyi got the lowest allocation of N22 billion.”
With these sums received by LGs, there is no justifiable reason for Lagos communities at the grassroots to still be grappling with a lack of basic facilities like health centres, clean water, schools, electricity, flooding, life-threatening roads, among others.
According to BudgIT, between 1999 and 2018, Lagos State’s IGR was over N32 trillion, while between 1988 and 2018, the state received over N4 trillion as federal allocations. Yet, the money is not reflected in visible projects that matter to the citizens at the grassroots.
Human rights activists in Nigeria have repeatedly stated that communities in Lagos State and Nigeria as a whole are in horrendous conditions due to the corruption and greed of state governors, who rather than pay LG councils the full allocations received from the Federation Account Allocation Committee will short pay them because the disbursement power lay in their hands. The corruption, which has been going on for years, has impacted negatively, not just on the LG councils, but also on the rights of communities at the grassroots.
Residents in these communities told our reporter that they were tired of waiting for the LGs to carry out their statutory functions and resorted to contributing money to ensure the availability of necessary infrastructure in their various communities. This is happening despite paying their taxes.
The action of the governors is a breach of the Nigerian Constitution, while the failure of the LGs to meet the needs of those at the grassroots is also a constitutional breach, which should attract penalties.
This corruption, which is detrimental to the citizens was also recently stressed by the suspended Chairman of Ijebu East Local Government Area of the Ogun State, Wale Adedayo, who has dragged Governor Dapo Abiodun before the Economic Financial Crimes Commission and Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission over alleged mismanagement of LGs funds in the state.
The National President of Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, Ambali Akeem, who is vexed with the manner state governors were embezzling money meant for LG councils, urged the Federal Government to have the courage to take punitive actions against such violation of Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, stressing that there were enough court judgements against such actions.
A member of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, who is working with an LG council in Lagos State, said corruption in the LGs in Lagos was among the major reasons some communities continue to be in deplorable conditions. The source said that the corruption and greed in most LGs in Lagos was common knowledge among workers.
The source added: “We have two kinds of records for the external auditors: the genuine and the cooked records. The auditors also know and so before they come to check the records for project spending, each department contributes money to give to them.” The source said that departments used majorly in syphoning money at the LGs level are Works, Water, Health and Environment.
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The source noted that the LGs, after the state government’s illegal deduction from their allocations, receive as much as “N90 million, N190 million and sometimes more, depending on the fiscal year. Although LGs are indeed short-paid by the state government for their FG allocations, everyone is aware of this, but these LG chairpersons can still carry out capital projects if they so wish. They are also corrupt! The LGs do not receive the same allocations from FG. For instance, Amuwo-Odofin and Ibeju-Lekki are among those that receive higher allocations.”
The source said that most capital projects were “audio projects” and that vouchers would be raised for projects, later pictorial evidence would be fabricated to prove an execution of a nonexistent project. The source added: “Most times, a department will have a project for N5 million, the LG chairman will tell him or her to raise a voucher for N15 million, and the chairman will take his cut.” The source said unimportant overseas travelling by chairpersons and their loyalties was another way of allocation and IGR wastages, which affects the LGs’ responsibilities to carry out their functions.
Asked why LGs are not publishing spending and projects executed, the source laughed: “They can never do that because we are not honest!” When the reporter asked for documents to determine the spending of LGs, the source replied: “Getting documents is not the problem, the problem is the paymaster will get into trouble. Everyone will think he gave you the document, and I don’t want that on my conscience.”
Former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2022 accused governors of mistreatment of administration of local resources, which he said was behind the ignorable lack of development in different local government areas in Nigeria. Buhari expressed shock over the brazen manner governors would collect money on behalf of LGs and remit negligible amounts to the chairpersons. He stated instances whereby if money from the Federation Account to the state was about N100 million, N50 million would be sent to the chairperson, who will sign to attest that he received N100 million. He also said that the governors in turn will pocket the balance and share such with anyone they favoured, at the detriment of those at the grassroots.
The Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, said that governance at all levels requires that the government provides maximum socio-economic and political development for the citizens both at the Federal, State and Local levels. He said: “Unfortunately despite the efforts by the people from the local communities, they are the most neglected in terms of development at all levels. This can be attributed to lack of effective administrative strategy at the LG level, coupled with corruption which is one of the major problems even at the local government level.”
Rafsanjani added that corruption was the overall problem, stressing that LG was the level of governance where massive acts of corruption take place, with chairpersons looting monies allocated to their LG. He said: “Another major problem at the LG level is that the state governments in Nigeria are deliberately sabotaging the growth and development of local governments. Everything is overseen by the state governments which hinders development at the local government level. The State Governors have pocketed local governments and therefore don’t allow them to do things on their own as such there is no autonomy or freedom even when it comes to using the resources allocated to them.
“The monies allocated to LGs in Nigeria are enough to bring maximum development to any LG if such monies can be efficiently utilised, not diverted. “There is a projected monthly allocation to LGs by the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) in its 2022 report of a 20.6 to 21.04 per cent increase in local government allocation. These monies, if used properly, will ensure that the LGs have maximum socio-economic and political development at the grassroots.”
Rafsanjani urged the Federal Government to pay attention to grassroots governance and ensure LGs are given autonomy in the management of their allocations. He said the people at the grassroots local governments should be sensitised, enlightened and educated about the functions of the government at the grassroots so that they could call the LGs out in the event of bad governance and mismanagement of resources.
Adedayo said LGs continue to have developmental challenges because of the quality of LG chairmen, who are mostly selected” rather than elected. Adedayo added that Civil Society Organisations should begin to pay attention to LGs rather than Federal and States. He urged CSOs to follow up on allocations, spending and projects. Adedayo stated: “The LGs hardly get funded. Nobody can talk because the governors can blackmail them at any time.” He noted that such corruption continues because most Nigerians do not know their rights or the functions of the LGs.
Adedayo, who admitted that it was Nigerian citizens that continued to bear the brunt of this corruption, described the situation as “a big tragedy”. The suspended chairman said that checking the corruption needed a genuinely patriotic Nigerian president, who has the political will to do the right thing. He added: “We also need a genuinely patriotic set of governors who realise that they have come to serve their people, not just to line their pockets.”
The National President of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, Ambali Akeem, opined that corruption in the form of diversion of taxpayers’ money meant for the LGs was the root of the perennial underdevelopment noticed in local communities. Akeem, while calling for an overhaul of the electoral system in the elections of LG chairpersons, added that the Auditor General for the Federation, the Federal Account Allocation Committee and the National Assembly as part of their oversight functions must track LG allocations regularly.
He added: “In this era of subsidy removal, there is an infrastructural gap at the LG level. What the Federal government under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu are expected to do is to give infrastructural support to LG. They should not give them money. What we believe is that they can buy tractors, graders, and mowers and distribute them to LGs. Let them go back and start opening rural roads, go and assist the farmers in giving essential services in cultivating their lands so that we have civil security, accessible roads and local government police should be institutionalised. It is only the LGs that can police effectively terrains in their area. All security challenges are local. LGs police like what we witnessed in Gambia, Libya, and other areas, should be put in practice.”
Asked if he thinks that LG allocations should be increased, Akeem responded: “If the allocations are increased, it will still end up in the pocket of those diverting it! What LGs are being given now and IGR of LGs is enough for them to carry out infrastructural development, make day to day running of the council and provide gainful employment to women and youth through vocational skills and empowerment.”
He explained that at the level of NULGE national, the organisation has led agitation for amendment of the Nigerian Constitution, adding: “But the governors turned themselves to be a clog in the wheel of progress because of the continuous looting of LGs. Everyone should join the crusade to ensure we free the LGs from the hand of the state government.”
According to BudgIT Nigeria: “Over the last decade, Lagos State’s accounts have taken on a worrisome trend; the amount of public funds being handled has grown, but so has secrecy and an outright refusal to adhere to the basic tenets of democracy that state the public has a right to know about expenditure. “Over the last decade, Lagos State’s accounts have taken on a worrisome trend; the amount of public funds being handled has grown, but so has secrecy and an outright refusal to adhere to the basic tenets of democracy that state the public has a right to know.
“With over N3.8 trillion spent by Lagos State governments between 1999 and 2015 amid little or no documentation and verifiable trails backing such spending, we use this medium to call for a holistic audit of the State’s finances. We urge the Lagos government to submit to the fundamental principles of democracy, which include publishing key budget documents, including the detailed proposed budget for Lagos State, the enacted budget, budget implementation reports, financial statements for Lagos, and the Audit reports.
“It is equally necessary for Lagos to publish all contract agreements entered into and carried over within each relevant financial year. We reiterate that it is important for taxpayers, civil society organisations, development partners, and international organisations to take note and be aware. “Lagos is increasingly normalising opacity in governance, despite being a prominent State; a development that could set dire precedents for other States and contribute to a devastating retardation of Nigeria’s hard-won democracy.”
The reporter contacted the President of NULGE, Lagos State Chapter, Comrade Afolabi Ajose, on the seemingly lackadaisical attitude of the LGs to developmental strides at the grassroots, but he said he was indisposed and could not talk.
This report was facilitated by the Wole Soyinka Centre For Investigative Journalism under its Collaborative Media Engagement For Development, Inclusivity And Accountability project.
