It’s amusing how the tides flow in government steads. Precisely Friday, July 12, 2024, nosey newshounds confronted the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Governor of Kwara state, AbdulRazaq AbdulRahman, as he made his way out of the State House after a meeting with Mr President. He was in the company of his Imo State counterpart, Senator Hope Uzodimma. The news of the Supreme Court judgment that granted financial autonomy to local governments just filtered in that afternoon and the journalists would not miss an opportunity as they swarmed on the Chairman.
The governor said the ruling has relieved the governors of a burden, noting that they are happy with the devolution of powers to the third tier of government.
“We welcome the ruling of the Supreme Court, compliance is given and our Attorney Generals have applied for the enrollment order, which we’ll study carefully.
“But by and large, governors are happy with the devolution of power regarding local government autonomy. It relieves the burden on governors.
“Our people don’t know how much states expend in bailing out local governments, and that’s the issue there.”
As for Kwara State, AbdulRahman said the judgment will not negatively affect it as the state government has not been tampering with local council funds.
“It’s not going to affect the state. We’ve never tampered with local government funds. So it’s going to continue. What the local governments have to do is to manage themselves, especially with the oncoming minimum wage, to manage their affairs and make sure salaries are paid, traditional rulers get their 5% and those are the main issues,” he said.
Two months after the governor’s ‘prudent’ observation, his Chief Press Secretary, Rafiu Ajakaiye, on the eve of the state’s attempt at participative governance through local government elections – after a five-year lull – is singing a song of foreboding, warning the grassroots politicians of the dangers ahead.
To determine the direction of the tides in the seeming congruence between Ajakaiye and the governor, Abiola Azeez, the Kwara State correspondent of the Tribune tracked down a candidate of the main opposition party, Comrade Lukman Salawudeen, popularly called Eluku, who is vying for the position of the LG Chair for Offa LGA under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the Saturday’s election in the state. When asked Eluku about the CPS’s foreboding on the election he said: “It’s best to use visible cues to determine the direction that the tide is moving. The CPS has given reasons why Kwara Kwara governor has denied the LG their existence for years, It’s blue murder on LG Autonomy”
Tell us a bit about your background and experience and how you think these have prepared you for the role of local government administrator you’re applying for
My name is Comrade Lukman Salawudeen. I am a bonafide son of Offa from Esinkin compound in the Ojomu Southeast ward of Kwara State.
I had my early education at St. James LG School, popularly known as Tidi-bogede and my secondary school education at Ansar-Ur-Deen College Offa. I graduated in 2005.
I proceeded to Kwara State Polytechnic to study Mineral Resources Engineering for my National Diploma and the Kaduna Polytechnic where I read Mining Engineering at the HND level. I attended Ahmadu University Zaria for my postgraduate and MSc in Water Resources and Environmental engineering.
I had the opportunity to work as a lecturer, an academic staff at the Department of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Engineering, Federal Polytechnic Nekede, in Imo State for about five years before I transferred to Kaduna Polytechnic where I lectured as well for about three years. It was from there I resigned to join politics actively.
All this while, I have been an activist, a comrade and a student leader of high reputation. I was one time the National President for the polytechnic students, the Vice President and Senate president. I was also opportune to serve as the Regional President for the West African Polytechnic Students Union where I represented the interests of the polytechnic and mono-technic students in about 16 countries. This has exposed me to international standards of human relations, human management and leadership charismatic engagement. I have been a community activist as well as the voice of the voiceless masses of Offa agitating for the legitimate rights and privileges of our people at every given occasion. I believe with this very background of engagement, activism and agitation I have a better understanding of what leadership is all about - human relations and human management, particularly with resource control and resource generation. These are the cardinal things one could get through this engagement I’ve listed above. So I’m optimistic I have the prerequisite exposure and understanding of leadership and human capital management.
What motivates you to run for this position, and what specific changes or improvements do you hope to achieve?
To be candid with you, one of the major motivations that prompted me into politics is the fact that as an activist, who has been agitating for good governance, we discovered that those who are opportune to be in positions of authority lack idea, the practical ideological tendencies that can better the life of the people. They tend not to understand the problem that they are elected to solve. So, this prompted some of us who have been agitators; who have been activists agitating for the wellbeing of Nigerian people and the masses in particular to push in for politics. We thought all these ideas, all these innovations - because of the generation we represent -
if we have the opportunity to be in power, our approach will be different because we have a better understanding of the problem as a victim of every bad governance in this country. It is in our generation that there is no automatic job for the best graduates. It is in our generation that one needs to pay before you get employed. Our generation does not have hope even after graduation that he or she will be gainfully employed. So, as a victim of the problem, if we have the opportunity to redirect the affairs of this country we should only do it better because we have a practical understanding of the problem and we are best fit to provide a solution. This is one of the motivations for which I have joined the political class, and my priority as a young man coming into the political space is to ensure that people's priorities are what is given. We have to understand the fact that most of our people in government do not have an understanding of people's problems. So, whenever they are trying to provide a solution, they tend to misdirect the priority of the people. My priority now is to prioritize the priority of the people. When people need water, I should be able to give them water, not road. When they need roads, I should know that it is roads they require, so that their requirements and their aspirations their yearnings will be exactly what the authority will provide at the time they need it, because, as you’ll agree with me, when someone is thirsty, if you offer such person food it is as good as you have not done anything. So putting the right peg in the right hole is the cardinal objective of my administration if God gives me this opportunity - prioritizing the priority of the people and giving the people what they need at the time they need it
What do you consider the most pressing issues facing our local government at the moment and how do you intend to solve these, given the little time you've talked about?
Thank you very much. As I mentioned, the fact that I'm a homegrown, which bears in my nickname, Omo-Adugbo - would tell you my level of involvement in the community’s affairs. Omo-Adugbo means ‘a son from the neighbourhood’, which further establishes my acclimatization to the environment that makes up Offa.
I have a better understanding of every critical need of our people and our community. One of the cardinal points of our yearning is infrastructure development and job creation. Our sons and daughters are not known to be lazy. We used to be an industrial town in the past, which made it so pervious for people to grow, live, and eat independently. Our people are not known to be beggars. They don't worship individuals. That is why we are unique in the entire Kwara. My people will tell you they are proud because nobody is feeding them. They are feeding on their handwork.
Over time, we have lost this status. Unemployment is at the peak in this community because the old town that is known as an industrial hub is now a civil servant community. That is one. Secondly, our infrastructure state is so decayed that it is becoming so embarrassing and at a high sub-level to the standard and quality of our people. Take, for instance, our community has never felt the presence of the federal government for a long time. We don't have prominent sons or daughters of Offa who could leverage their positions to make things look up for the community and, this is a community that has been ranked the most educated in the entire north-central Nigeria- a single community with over 150 professors, countless PhD holders, engineers, and captains of industries. But when you look at our status as a people and the state of our infrastructure, you will see a great contradiction. Therefore, infrastructure is one of the major problems we are also facing.
When you take these two out, you now see the level of unemployment that is staring at us. This stark reality of unemployment has degenerated into insecurity. One is a link to the other. These are the two cardinal things that have beguiled our community. These are the areas of my priority that I am going to address holistically.
With the recent grant of full autonomy and direct disbursement of funds to the local government, how do you plan to manage and allocate these funds effectively?
Thank you very much. I am a product of zero budgeting. My leadership development skill was built around zero budgeting. Zero budgeting means planning without resources, an ideology to drive funds to pursue a project. That has been my background. You understand that as a student unionist in this country, since the era of General Babangida, student unionism has been made voluntarily, where student leaders have to implement one or two projects, all through zero budgeting. We don't have the funds but we have to execute projects. So, we always plan on zero budgeting. This same thing will be applicable in my new job, whenever I take it up, in the sense that we’ll look for critical ways of generating ideas that will complement the federal allocation, because truly, if we want to base every effort and development plan on allocation or funds coming, it becomes so difficult to meet up. So, my cardinal focus will be on how to improve the IGF base of the community. With the autonomy coming now, it means there must be proper allocation and application of funds, meaning that it is going to be on priority.
What I’m saying here is that the allocation of resources would be based on priority. When there is fairness in identifying priorities, there won’t be any problem. In administration and governance, there is something called the scale of preference, a scale of preference in the sense that when we itemize our needs, when resources come, we're going to place them and apply them according to their scale of preferences. So in doing so, we also ensure even distribution of these developmental attentions. For instance, we have five districts in Offa local government. We have Ojomu, Essa, Shawo, Balogun and Igbo-dun making five. Then there’s the recently created Asalofa district making six. When we want to allocate resources, we’ll ensure even distribution of whatever resources we are allocating in terms of project or intervention. So every strata of the community, every strata of the local government, will be feeling the impact simultaneously. This will enable us to balance the interest and also identify the needs of each district in the application of the fund. Once we can guide against misplacement of priority and misapplication of resources, we're going to have results, have an impact on our allocation as it is coming, because now, one of the major problems we are having with the scarce resources is the fact that there is a lot of fraudulent processes in the expenditure of the government. Take, for instance, the number of the SUBEB staff will need to be ascertained, hope there are no ghost workers along this line because these are the revenue leakages that we need to critically look at and examine. When we can address that we’ll ensure that it is the exact number of people who are working that are earning a salary. That will save us a lot of stress in terms of the application of funds, so we’ll not be applying funds where there is a leakage.
So, these are the areas we're going to critically look at to ensure that our allocation as it comes is properly guided. That it does not go to the governors, because the President has said that the essence of autonomy is to ensure that the resources are not channelled through the governors who use their willpower to determine its application when it is not coming directly to the local government. It means we must establish the needs of the people, and the masses, and apply the funds according to their preferences. So that is the way we're going to manage this resource to ensure that every citizen, every resident of Offa local government has impacts for this money because this money is not a personal fund of anybody. It is the accumulated tax taken from citizens that is being returned to the authority to work for the people. So the essence of this is that we're going to ensure the Offa people's allocation works for the people, for the benefit of Offa people. This is the way we're going to ensure it does. The style we are going to adopt is a scale of preference that will prioritize even distribution of these resources and fairness in identifying the pressing needs of each of these districts. The districts will be the cardinal focus if for instance, we are attacking water issues, we’ll ensure that water intervention will be done across the six districts. If it is a power intervention, we’ll ensure that power intervention is done across the six districts. If it is, for instance, food intervention, whatever food we are pushing will circulate the sixth districts. To crown it all, one of the styles we want to adopt is to get to the people through quarterly engagement, in town meetings. In the quarterly engagement of stakeholders in the community, every community heads, all the traditional institutions, youth groups, student groups, Iyaloja, Babaloja would be adequately represented. We will now discuss, as a community and as a government - what are the pressing needs of our people? How do you want us to tackle it?
So, when we get their preferences, we will now know which way to go. That is our projection- a quarterly meeting to constantly access the community. So, we are optimistic. As I have said, we plan to identify the people's priorities and attend to their priorities, prioritizing the priority of the people at the time they need it. So it can be effective. So you can see now we have a very perfect plan to ensure that people's needs are attended to.
You have good intentions but I don’t think it works out like that most of the time with bureaucracy and with the technocrats, who are always out to circumvent processes. How do you want to ensure accountability and transparency?
One of the major problems - because I am an activist and I know the number of times I've engaged with heads of authorities about transparency and accountability - one thing I lately discovered, permit me to use the words of our fathers – Ka fi ti Kesari fun Kesari, ka fi tOluwa fun Oluwa ‘Give unto Caesar what’s Caesar’s’. When you run a government and you give room for every interest to be represented, people tend not to fight your cause. I understand there are political interests, there are community interests. In all of my activities, engagements and projects, I will take into consideration all these factors so that nobody will sabotage my effort. I must have ensured that your interest has been captured so that you have no excuse not to deliver on the mandate we give to you. So, this is how to manage people's interests. When you understand how to manage people, power and politics it becomes easier for you. For instance, you want a project to be executed for you at the cost of five naira. You must have done your background checks that this project would cost five naira. You now give it out at seven Naira, letting the person know that you know that the project is five Naira, but you have considered other factors, including his profit margin and telling him you don't want to hinder the quality of the job to be done. You now tell him: I'm offering you seven Naira, please ensure my job is done adequately. If he refuses and you now take the necessary action – that would be disciplinary action against the person -nobody will fault you, because you have considered all factors. The problem we have in this country, particularly in the contract system is that of ‘sorting’ out people along the line before a job is completed. I understand this part but I don’t think the quality should be compromised. We're going to work mostly through direct labour if we have this opportunity.
I would try as much as possible to remain upright, transparent and accountable and make available to the people every month through a specially created radio programme, Eto Ilu ati Ise Ilu every month our allocation from the federal government, the state government and our IGR, including our target and our priority for the month. When people are carried along, it becomes difficult for any political weight to even come and ask you to cut part of your resources to them, because how will you explain to the people, the purpose of that money they are asking from you? Besides, the party we are representing has no such people who will ask us for our allocation.
An opinion piece that comes as a wake-up call by the CPS, Ajakaiye warned the citizens of Kwara State to be more discerning in their electoral choices, especially in the forthcoming local government elections in the State. Considering this view and others in some quarters that LG administration cannot perform due to overhead costs, what and how do you hope to achieve success?
I read the content. It is not entirely true, in all fairness. Truly, the allocation he claimed to be that of Offa is not correct.
How?
We have the statistics from the Federal Revenue Allocation Commission that stipulated the amounts and figures that have been allocated to each of the local government areas since the removal of the oil subsidy, particularly that of Offa local government, between January to July. What has accrued to Offa local government is about 1.6 billion.
He said something like that, too.
The figure he gave is for six months. He cannot say that what accrued to Offa was 1.6 billion. No. From our research – you know we are students, we are intellectuals. In what he reported about Offa, he said 91% or so is being used for salary and other running costs. That’s not entirely correct.
Now, let me give you the details. Offa Local Government as of today, has 12 primary healthcare centres. We have one General Hospital. The general hospital is under the state government care. Only primary health care is the local government’s responsibility.
In terms of schools, SUBEB, which has the responsibility for the primary and junior secondary schools in the local government has a total of 72 schools. We have 50 primary schools. We have 22 junior secondary schools under the local government care. Now, our IGR is around 2.5 to 2.7 million in a month due to leakages. You understand?
Then the federal allocation. Since Tinubu came on board, our average allocation is 271 million. You put this 271 million multiplied by nine months - we're in the ninth month. As you know, we are not talking about one billion. It's above, far above, close to two billion.
Now, the local government staff strength, who are directly earning salaries from local government authority, the total is about 390. You understand? Then, the SUBEB staff for all these junior secondary schools and public primary schools, they are 916. That's the total number of these people. Now, SUBEB salary, as of July of this year, the total cost is 76 million. That of the local government staff, who are 400 in number - about 390 to 400 in number.
We have about six departments in the local government. We have admin, we have works, we have agric, we have education, and we have the PRS. These are the sections. These sections encapsulate the entire staff of the local government. So, we have the admin, we have works, we have agric, we have education and the PRS.
In health, we have a total of 132 staff. Treasury, we have 85 staff. PRS, we have 6 staff, Agric, we have 11. Works 47, admin we have 68. Works, we have 47. The total number of staff in the entire local government system overall is around 400 - 399 to 400. So, we now assume their salary should be 50 million in a month. We put 50 million and 76 million together. We have about 120 million. Now, we don't have many political appointees that we are paying. By the time we put the political appointees. - let us assume 10 million is going for the political appointees and everybody's salaries and benefits. That's 130 million.
Remove 130 from 271. So, it's telling you that we are having 140 million in a month. We can conveniently assume that we have 100 million Naira aside as votes for development every month.
This will go a long way. That's why I assume the analysis by the CPS is not entirely correct. The people of Offa local government understand the situation. So, somebody cannot twist facts and discourage us. One thing I will say however is that it’s best to use visible cues to determine the direction that the tide is moving. The CPS has given reasons why the Kwara Kwara governor has denied the LG their existence for years, It’s blue murder on LG Autonomy
But nonetheless, as I said, it is good that whoever is coming now to be the local government chairman must have the ability to add one plus one and make it two. We cannot rest on allocation. And truly, with the new minimum wage that is coming, the cost of salary will jack up. That is why we are saying our coming now will focus on how to improve the IGR. And doing so, we have to get opportunities in the agricultural sector.
We have to get the opportunities in commerce, that's trading. One of the major jobs of our people is education and commerce. That's why you see a lot of our people are respected capital industry. So, we are looking at how to invest greatly in agriculture. The sweet potato is one of the most sellable content in the country and outside. It's one of our pride as a community. We are looking at the possibility of having a plantation of sweet potatoes. When we harvest, we export, we generate income. Cassava is one of the prominent agricultural products that grows very fast and easily in this community. We're going to invest in this.
Our local government used to have a farm, a cassava processing plant, which was initiated by a former Chairman. It has been abandoned. We're going to revisit it. We're going to invest in a lot of enterprises that will generate income for the local government. And optimistically, we're looking at how to revive some of our industries through partnerships with banks. Because now we have an autonomous community, where we partner. It has been moribund for years. We have one carpet company here.
So the content of the article is not entirely correct. As of today, our total value is almost 50% of our federal allocation. Not even talking of the state allocation, because at least 10% of the state allocation is expected to be deployed to local government. There's no doubt that it painted an overblown workforce in local governance. You also seem to be corroborating that with what you just said.
Do you intend to lay off local government staff or something to achieve what I would now call your priority?
Like I told you, when you are sincere - one of the major problems we are having in civil service today is the fact that there is no fairness to the civil servants. They are the engine room of every administration. When they are motivated, they are prioritized. When their welfare is prioritized. They tend to give you their best. I would not lay off any individual. I would rather motivate them to give their best to the discharge of their duties by ensuring that their welfare is adequately taken care of. Whatever that is their right, under no circumstances should be dropped down. Above all, when you place their priority on their welfare now, they tend to give you their best and you have no sabotage in your administration.
Do you think the Supreme Court's verdict on local government is enough to give independence to the local government?
It is not. In all sincerity, it is not. An Independent of local government, autonomous local government is beyond financial autonomy. We also need to look at the administration of the local government. Like some states are sincere, they have scrapped off Ministry of Local Government and Substantial Affairs.
Do you expect that to happen in Kwara State?
That must happen if we truly want a truly independent local government system. Also, the electioneering processes into local government authority must be taken off the state government. It has to be from the national, either the INEC or a special agency like the National Assembly proposed will take over. It is not until when these two are done, that we cannot have a true autonomous local government system in Nigeria. So let the local government be completely independent so that the process of electing their leaders, both the chairman and councillor be out of the government's control, the governor's control. Their finance entirely, both local and the state, should be deployed to them directly. Likewise, the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs has no purpose when local government is autonomous.
So, these three are the cardinal things. We have only achieved one, and in some states, the two have been achieved, like Bauchi State, you understand. But we are hoping that in 2022, our governor will look into it and give a practical autonomy system as a chairman of the governors who is expected to complement Mr President's effort in making Nigeria work for Nigerians.
He will also take a bold step by scrapping the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs and ensuring that every resource generated in each local government is returned to the local government cover. If there may be an agreement and understanding of the remittance of a certain percentage from the IGR to complement the state effort that will not be a problem. However, through autonomous local government, all the IGR should be controlled by the local government.
Yes, another aspect of Ajakaiye's write-up is the fact that he said expenditure was higher in 2022 with the promotion of local government staff and things like that. How do you want to handle this situation? Or rather, did this happen at all?
I must tell you, it is completely a deceptive statement. Upon the approval of the minimum wage, I think that was in 2018, I guess, when the minimum wage came. Kwara did not implement the minimum wage completely. From level 1 to level 6, there was a minimum wage. Level 7 to 17, it was a consequential adjustment that the state government implemented for them. So how do you want to justify that there is a rise in the cost of expenditure? That is not completely true.
And I have also said in my statement earlier, in our local government, where we have SUBEB staff, about 906, we have about 402 local government staff. As of July 2024, the total expenditure for salary is 76 million plus, where our allocation is 271 million, average, since the beginning of the Tinubu era. So Mr. Ajakaiye has not been fair to the Offa people. He may be correct in others, but in our own case, he has not been fair to us. The local government staff we are talking about, are just 402 in Offa. Even though we could not lay hands on the actual figure of the cost of their salary, the one we lay hands on, that number 916, the total cost of their salary is 76 million, 113,461 Naira, One Kobo
When you juxtapose these, 400 people to 916 people, let's assume they even take 70 per cent of these people, so there should be around 50 million. When you put 50 million together with 76 million, it tells you that we have not exhausted 75 per cent of our allocation, that of federal, not to talk of that of the state and the local IGRs. So that statement is not entirely correct as far as local government is concerned.
We are informed people, we are an educated community. We work on facts and figures, not emotion. So there is prosperity in this autonomy system when it comes. The only fear we are noticing is the new minimum wage that is coming. If we are to implement it, it may also level up the current expenditure. But we are also preparing to establish multiple sources of IGR that will complement whatever pressure that is bringing. You understand? So you don't necessarily need to put unnecessary fear by painting what is not correct about our economy.
Others may be correct, but so far. I've just told you, with the number of staff we have in SUBEB, the number of staff we have in local government, the number of hospitals we have, the number of roads, the number of transformers, most of these things the government are not even doing anything to it. The only responsibility of the government is taking care of staff salaries.
In terms of infrastructure, we don't have much to point to as state government contribution. In the past five years, Rondo Road, a mere 1.6 kilometres, has remained half-done. For the past three years, it has been abandoned. The promise of upgrading our stadium has not been fulfilled for the past four years. The only new road they want to give us now is an expansion of Taiwo Road, which was not an expansion in practice a renovation is 2.6 kilometres.
And we have information it was a debt reform system. You understand? So there has not been any significant commitment from the pool of money coming to the state in local government, so to speak. So the government does not have any commitment in terms of power.
It is our president, our fathers who are landlords that are contributing money to buy polls, to buy transformers, to repair transformers. So nothing has been coming from the state. So it's not correct to justify that there has been a huge burden on your current or any other expenditure in our local government.
So you must understand that it's not like every other local government inquiry, where you can just throw deceptions or lies. Our money, 81% of our money has not been used for your current expenditure. That is not correct.
Like I said, we're going to identify the people's priority and prioritize the priority of the people. That is our mission. And that is the slogan of our administration.
Like I mentioned road is one of the major problems we are having. But we understand that there is a gradual process to revitalize our roads in such a way that the water drainage system is critical. It's one of the major things that destroys most of our roads in our community.
When we ascend to power by the special grace of God, we're going to ensure that local government authority asks for a functional works department that is capable of repairing and rehabilitating roads. This will be done when we equip our works department, the grader, the excavator, and the bulldozer, they will be prioritized and ensure that they are functional in the works department. And we're going to employ those we have there, we're going to retrain them and ensure that they are up to the task so that they can manage this major work.
Culvert construction will be one of the first things we attend to through collaboration. We're going to engage the landlords, those that can make the money. We have a bylaw in our local government that every landlord must execute a culvert in front of the house that shares the boundary with the road.
This has not been monitored over time. We're going to revisit this bylaw and ensure that every landlord whose houses are by the roadside, by the streets, must execute culvert. When this is done, the local government will come in and ensure that we put grading.
When we grade it, when we continue in governance, when the IGR improves, those that will be placed on interlocking will be considered. Those that will be a tarred road with quota will be considered. Ultimately, addressing our road, grading and culvert will be the mid-time approach to restoring infrastructure within the community.
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