By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

A coalition of anti-corruption groups has urged the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to urgently undertake a thorough probe of the alleged diversion of local government funds by Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State.

The coalition was reacting to the allegation by the now-suspended Chairman of Ijebu East Local Government Council, Mr. Wale Adedayo, that Governor Abiodun has been diverting the local governments’ statutory funds from the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) to the 20 local government area councils in the state since 2021.

Adedayo specifically claimed that the Governor has been illegally tampering with Ecological Funds; cornered the Federal Government Palliatives allocation under President Muhammed Buhari up to the tune of N10 billion.

Adedayo also alleged that the State Government has not been disbursing the statutory monthly allocations of the Councils through the State, Joint Account Allocation Committee, or paying the requisite constitutional 10% of the State’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to the local governments, while it equally cornered the collections of parks and markets levies which are within the jurisdictional purview of local government administrations.

In a statement on Wednesday, jointly signed by Olanrewaju Suraju of HEDA Resource Centre, Zikirullah Ibrahim of CHRICED, Muhammed Attah of PRADIN, Awaru Musa Rafsanjani of CISLAC, and David Ugolor of ANEEJ, the coalition said that the issue deserves urgent, rigorous, and affirmative searchlights of the anti-graft enforcement agencies in the country.

It said: “As a group of anti-corruption watchdogs with social conscience, we are disturbed on the dire consequences of corrupt practices in depleting our meagre public treasury. The case in Ogun State, by all parameters is a vintage sample of how the society is robbed by unscrupulous public office holders of the scarce funds that could have been deployed to shore up abysmal social infrastructural deficits. Ogun State case should be template for extensive investigation of management and otherwise of local government funds and the JAAC accounts.

“Ogun State is littered with plethora of impassable roads, especially in the rural communities. Most rural dwellers in the state go through harrowing conditions to get their agricultural farm products to market in urban centres. This adversely affects the means of livelihoods of majority of citizens who are domiciled in the rural interiors. The same funds that are criminally diverted would have been deployed to provide basic social infrastructural facilities in environmental sanitation, primary healthcare and educational services. This corruption scourge in our public space is responsible for retarding the steps towards the nation’s developmental leap as envisaged by the Government and all well-meaning Nigerians.

“We, thus, unequivocally call on the operatives of anti-graft institutions to urgently extend their nets, enlarge their periscope to critically scrutinize the financial books of Ogun State Government, and the 20 local government councils, with particular emphasis on the transactions in the FAAC and JAAC accounts. All the major players and stakeholders in the state, be it institutional, individual or groups should also be subjected to comprehensive investigations to track how these funds have been diverted from its statutory purposes and destination points like Ijebu East Local Government Area.

“We call on the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to swing into action and do their work on these odious allegations suffocating our public space. We are confident that heavens shall not fall, if the culprits are brought to book. Rather, the country would be with the prospect of a more open, accountable, transparent and equitable ambience necessary for sustainable, holistic development.

“The Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) do not require any special nodding before beaming their searchlights on this egregious financial improprieties levied against the Governor of Ogun State, Prince Dapo Abiodun, as well as any other persons or agencies that may be involved in the illicit diversion of the local government allocations in the state.

“Various reports in the public domain reveals enough worms out of the cans of the Ogun State Treasury, which should never be treated with kid’s glove or swept under the kept or reduced to a ‘party affair’ if the nation’s anti-corruption crusade is not to be made a caricature jamboree in the comity of nation. Needless to say that the global investment community considers these kinds of cases as part of the indicators on the ease of doing business in the country.

“The country under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has one of its cardinal programmes as the imperative to court huge foreign investment portfolios to bolster the ailing national economy. Any case of sleaze practices in corridors of power without requisite, diligent enquiries, and apprehension, would therefore, be harmful to this policy direction.”