You can help prevent Govs from stealing, instead of merely talking, it says
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Council workers have reminded Muhammadu Buhari he can help stop Governors from stealing public funds, instead of merely exposing and lamenting about how they collude with council Chairmen to loot the treasury.
“I found it necessary to digress after reading my speech and this digression is a result of my personal experience,” Buhari announced on Thursday in Aso Rock.
He was speaking at a meeting with members of Senior Executive Course No. 44 (SEC 44) of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Jos.
“What they did, this is my personal experience, if the money from the Federation Account to the state is about N100 million, N50 million will be sent to the [local government] Chairman, but he will sign that he received N100 million,” he disclosed.
“The Governor will pocket the balance and share it with whoever he wants to share it with.
‘‘And then the Chairman of the local government must see how much he must pay salaries, and to hell with development. When he pays the salaries of the big men, the balance he will put in his pocket.
‘‘This is what’s happening. This is Nigeria. It’s a terrible thing; you cannot say the person who was doing this is not educated. He was a qualified lawyer, he was experienced, yet he participated in this type of corruption.”
Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) President Hakeem Ambali asked Buhari to do more than mere talk and prevail on Governors in his All Progressives Congress (APC) to sign the Local Government Autonomy Bill into law.
“He should go beyond that statement. He is the leader of the party, he should ask them to sign the autonomy into law; he is the leader of [APC] Governors which would encourage Governors in other parties to emulate them,” he stressed.
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Buhari should lead by example
“Local government funds have been misapplied and misappropriated. We want the President to have the good courage to take the bull by the horns,” Ambali added, according to The PUNCH.
“If the problems of poverty, insecurity, hopelessness and threat to the country needed to be addressed then, local governments must be granted full autonomy; that is the way to go.
“We also want all the presidential candidates to be sincere with Nigerians and state their stance on local government autonomy.
“Keeping mum will not help them and we have directed all our members to vote for any presidential candidate who openly declares support for local government autonomy and unfortunately, none of them has spoken on local government autonomy.
“The President should lead by example, he should ask APC Governors to support local government autonomy; that one can demonstrate that the APC is a progressive party.
“Autonomy is the mindset of Mr. President and all of them must respect that, but, unfortunately, even Lagos voted against autonomy. If you are opposing local government autonomy, definitely, you have something to hide.”