Chairman of the Senate Committee on Services and Senator representing Kogi West, Sunday Steve Karimi, has said the National Assembly fully supports President Bola Tinubu’s position on the implementation of practical and unfettered financial autonomy for local governments.

Karimi stated that the legislature would enact the necessary laws to ensure strict compliance with the Supreme Court judgment granting fiscal autonomy to the third tier of government.

Speaking while hosting his constituents to mark the New Year, the senator recalled the landmark judgment delivered by the Supreme Court on July 25, 2024, which ordered the direct disbursement of federal allocations to the country’s 774 local government councils.

He noted that the apex court declared state governors’ control of local government funds unconstitutional and invalidated the use of caretaker committees, describing them as illegal.

According to Karimi, the ruling was intended to strengthen grassroots democracy and governance by ensuring that statutory allocations are paid directly to democratically elected local government officials, free from state interference.

He added that the judgment was also designed to improve service delivery at the local government level, which he described as the foundation of the country’s governance structure.

Despite what he described as a clear, explicit and unambiguous pronouncement by the Supreme Court, Karimi lamented that some states have continued to disregard and undermine the ruling.

According to Karimi, “cognisant of the errant conduct of some state governors on the issue, President Tinubu warned at the recent National Executive Committee meeting of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) a fortnight ago, that he may be compelled to issue an Executive Order to whip defaulting governors into line.”

The President, Senator Karimi observed, had exercised restraint for so long with non-conformists, despite the fact that he has the powers to impose on them to do what is right.

Said Karimi, “The National Assembly will prioritise the matter of the non-adherence of certain governors across the broad spectrum, to the subsisting Supreme Court ruling on local government financial autonomy. We will back the President with relevant laws which will be retroactively effective. The laws will track the kleptomania and squandermania of governors who have been looting the commonwealth of the people of Nigeria. They will be prosecuted, compelled to make returns and punished for undermining the wellbeing of the generality of the people, by wilfully stealing what rightly belongs to them.”

Speaking further, Karimi said that trillions of naira had been pilfered from the resources of Nigerians by gluttonous governors.

His words, “There is general consensus that no administration in contemporary history has made as much resources available to states and local government areas as the Tinubu government, but the people are barely feeling the impact in many places. During the screening of service chiefs recently, the chief of Defence staff noted that not allowing LGAs to function has contributed to insecurity in the country, creating lots of ungoverned space in the country. Some governors, their godfathers and members of their cabals, put a knife on local government funds every month, as their own “dessert” after meals.”

This, the Kogi West Senator noted, “is why the local government system is dysfunctional and incapable of rendering the most basic services to their constituents. It is the reason many parts of the country have become dangerous ungoverned spaces and operational bases for terrorists. Governors who have been wilfully denying the people the resources for development, their aiders and abetters, and their rabid defenders in the media will meet their comeuppance when the parliament enables the appropriate legislations.”

According to Senator Karimi, in some states of the federation, what is being done is outright stealing of LGAs allocation.

While local government funds are transferred to the LGAs bank accounts, the state then operates voucher racketeering schemes, where documents are processed for fictitious jobs that are never executed, while the relevant supervisory councillors and chairmen are compelled to sign and approve such fraudulent vouchers which run into billions of naira monthly. No jobs are carried out, while funds are looted steadily and regularly. Chairmen dare not complain for the fear of their lives because the ruling gangs in some states are deadly. This type of fraud shouldn’t be happening in the 21st century in Nigeria.” (The Nation)