Governors Have Always Kicked Against Direct Funding Of LGs- Atiku

Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) presidential candidate, has disclosed that governors fought against giving direct funding to local governments while he was vice president of the nation.

The PDP candidate made this revelation on Sunday at the Arise TV presidential town hall.

President Muhammadu Buhari accused governors of diverting the funding for LGAs in their states on Thursday.

It is inconceivable, he claimed, for some state governors to collect money on behalf of council areas and then send barely half of that sum to the council chairpersons.

Nigerians have responded to the claim in various ways, with many calling for the president to name the responsible governors.

Atiku, who served as Nigeria’s vice president from 1999 to 2007, discussed the situation and described how governors used legal loopholes to prevent the direct transfer of funding to local government.

“fundamental flaw in our legislation” as far as local government funding is concerned and it must be fixed.

“When I assumed office in 1999, what was handed over to me was the local government administration. When it was handed over to me, I gave instructions to the accountant general that all local government allocations should be transferred to the local governments straight. After implementing that policy for nine months, the governors protested that that was not constitutional,” he said

“So we looked at the constitution, and they said there was supposed to be a joint account at the state level where local government funds should be transferred and also the state government was supposed to put a certain percentage of their revenue into that account, and it (the local government funds) was then moved to that joint account.

“Then, the local governments started getting their funding through the state joint accounts and that is where we have problems. In that process, some state governments started taking part in the local government finances. Some said they were going to run universities with the state governments, some said local governments should contribute to certain projects in the state. At the end of the day, the funds were being depleted and the local governments were left with no funding, and in fact, it has gone to virtually nothing now.

“We must look at the laws and see how we can make these local governments independent and protect them when funds are sent from the federal government. I think there’s a major flaw in our laws regarding that.”