Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has warned chairmen of local council areas that it will not tolerate any form of financial mismanagement at the grassroots level.
The warning followed the Supreme Court judgment granting financial autonomy to local governments. The commission vowed to closely monitor local government activities to ensure good governance, accountability, and transparency.
It gave the warning at a national dialogue organised by Agora Policy, themed, ‘Enthroning Accountability in Local Government in Nigeria”, in Abuja, yesterday.
A representative of the EFCC chairman, Friday Ebelo, said: “Good governance encompasses three essential elements: accountability, transparency, and citizen participation. For these elements to be effective, we need dedicated and development-minded individuals to manage local council administrations.
“We must make a deliberate effort to bring the presence of governance to our people, ensuring that citizens feel the impact of governance in their daily lives, particularly in areas such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure development.”
Agora Policy founder, Waziri Adio, emphasised the need for reforms in rural council areas, stating: “Local government areas are the least trusted, least capacitated, and least interesting to the public.” Adio lamented that local councils were failing to meet expectations.
“Only 28 per cent of citizens trusted local government administration, down from 58 per cent in 2000,” he quoted from Afrobarometer’s 2008 survey. Africa’s Director of the MacArthur Foundation, Kole Shettima, emphasised the need for local council reforms, citing a conversation where a villager expected President to fix a local water issue.
EFCC warning came just as Concerned Northern Forum (CNF) called on the Commission to probe 36 state governments on the usage of statutory allocations from the Federal Government, as part of measures to address hardship faced by the citizenry.
The group’s spokesperson, Abdulsalam Moh’d Kazeem, at a press conference in Abuja, yesterday, remarked that the call was based on the realisation that some state governors had refused to channel money and other palliatives to vulnerable Nigerians in their domains.
The forum blamed the situation for the nationwide protests, which led to loss of lives and properties worth billions of naira across the country. The forum also called on the Federal Government to consider punitive measures in states, where sensitive government property and infrastructure were destroyed during the nationwide hunger protests.
The forum stressed the need to relocate the affected facilities to neighbouring states with functional governors to serve as incentives for hard work and dedicated stewardship.