*”PRESIDENT BOLA TINUBU, STATE GOVERNORS AND THE SHAMELESS HYPOCRISY OVER LOCAL GOVT FUNDS”*
( By Dr Ope Banwo, The Mayor Of Fadeyi)

Ore mi, today let’s talk about the vexing hypocrisy and illegality over local govt funds by our president and his governors. I understand that Local Govt employees and many trade unions are about to make an example of Gov Dapo Abiodun by going on a protest to demand release of the Local Govt funds that he has held hostage for months.

Of course, I have been on record many times that I honestly think Gov Dapo is a mini Hitler masquerading as a democratic governor, and I have also observed that the only criteria in which he has excelled as a governor is in the area of dancing Jekanmo at parties while bragging about doing fake roads and acquiring PhD titles when we are not even sure his first degree was pure .

However, my known sentiments about Dapo Abiodun aside, on this issue of local govt funds, let’s stop pretending we don’t know what is going on. The real culprit here is not just Gov Dapo Abiodun and other governors like him who continue to use local govt funds as they please. The real culprit is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu—the president who holds both the yam and the knife of the national cake but refuses to cut governors and Local Govt chairmen their cuts directly.

He tells us publicly since he knows we are all Mugu’s, that he believes in Local Govt autonomy, but somehow he still continues to cut the cheques of Local Governments into the governors’ accounts. Who is deceiving who? Ta Len tan ?

The Constitution, and Supreme Court decisions have all made it crystal clear that Local Governments are a distinct, independent tier of government and are entitled to receive their allocations directly for grassroots development.

One of the loopholes the fed govt and states have been using to steal or misappropriate local govt funds is by claiming that 1999 Constitution of Nigeria provides for a State Joint Local Government Account under Section 162(6) That says: Local Government allocations from the Federation Account are to be paid into a Joint Account maintained by the state for the benefit of Local Governments.

But it’s when you want to play politics with local govt money that you start quoting constitutional provision that has been debunked in several court cases . The truth is, if our president will stop playing games, it will know that Even within Section 162, the Federal Government controls the point of first disbursement.

That means:
• FG chooses how to credit the funds
• the FG can require direct crediting into sub-accounts traceable to each Local Government so their money is clear
• FG can enforce disbursement conditions that prevent governors from sitting on funds

So when the President says “governors are abusing LG funds” but keeps sending the money into a system he knows is corrupt, that is policy choice, not constitutional constraint

Yet for decades, Nigerian presidents have perfected an illegal political tradition that routes local govt funds through state governors, fully aware that this arrangement has become a pipeline for abuse.

Governors sit on Local Government funds, shave off huge chunks, and some even force chairmen to sign for amounts they never received. One of my diaspora friends from the USA who came to contest for Local Govt chairman in Benue told me of his personal horrific experience: how they were asking him sign for an amount 10 times bigger than he actually received as local govt chairman. It’s incredible fraud in plain sight, and the story is that most governors do this too

We also still remember that one chairman in Ogun State, Mr. Adedayo, who got impeached, harassed, and arrested for daring to call out our governor, Dapo Abiodun, over this same Local Govt funds misappropriation.

So, what you get at the end of the day are Local Government chairmen reduced to errand boys, political hostages, and stooges—not administrators.

And who suffers? The real masses—where local schools collapse, roads disappear, rural healthcare is a joke and people are still dying of snakebites in 2026 and where our people prefer to call it spiritual snakebites instead of holding their elected officers responsible for not providing basic venom in local hospitals.

Ha. Oma se o.

Many of our local govt chairmen just go to office to read newspapers with no funds to do anything other than do obley with the little the governor chooses to give them.
Now here’s where the hypocrisy becomes unbearable.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu knows this fraud inside out. He lived it. As Governor of Lagos, he fought President Olusegun Obasanjo for eight years to get Lagos Local Government funds released. He complained bitterly—and rightly so—that withholding Local Government allocations was illegal, oppressive, and anti-development.

But Fast-forward to today, now that the complainer himself is now the president. Instead of ending the abuse, he himself has become the abuser-in-chief, holding the funds of Local Governments hostage. Even the Osun Governor is crying about this same problem as we speak, against the president.

So. It would appear that Our folksy president only does Shakara on tv about this thing but still refuses to pay the money directly to Local Governments in a way that the grubby hands of our Govs won’t get it.

Sir, If you truly want to end the abuse, you don’t issue speeches—you credit Local Government accounts directly from the centre, because the Federal Government is the one distributing the money in the first place. Anything short of that is you treating us all like Mugus.

The truth is obvious: I think President Tinubu is playing politics. He needs governors on his side for a second term, so he refuses to pull the plug on a system he knows is rotten. To me, with profound respect sir, That is not leadership—it’s complicity.

This charade must stop sir. You know it’s wrong and you can do something about it today.

Local Governments should not be forced to protest against governors for money that never should have passed through governors hands in the first place.

Yes, governors like Dapo Abiodun deserve to be called out for sitting on Local Government funds. No argument there. But let’s not pretend they are acting in a vacuum.

The primary enabler is the Federal Government and our National Assembly that refused to censure the President?

Sadly, our National Assembly remains a pitiful rubber stamp to this president (in almost 3 years they are yet to say No To the President in anything —Akpabio and his distinguished senators are silent when they should be loud, timid when they should be fearless. For once, we call on our NASS to grow some balls and call out this executive hypocrisy and illegality.

President Tinubu once bragged that he has “the yam and the knife.” Well, Nigerians are watching. If you truly have both, then daddy, please cut everyone their lawful share and stop manufacturing friction, chaos, and needless protests. Anything else is an insult to the intelligence of Nigerians.

This political game with Local Government funds is wicked, dishonest, and destructive—and it must end.

Please help me share and share this until your Senator and Mr President hear this
To get better leaders, we followers must also be better and refuse to follow blindly