By Bilesanmi Abayomi
The President of Ta’awun Humanitarian Forum, Lagos, Mr. Taiwo Lasisi, has described the removal of the fuel subsidy as a blessing for local governments across Nigeria, noting that allocations to councils have increased significantly—almost tripled—since the policy took effect.
In an exclusive interview with KosofePost, Lasisi discussed the theme: “Is the subsidy removal a blessing to local governments across Nigeria, or merely a conduit pipe for council chairmen to enrich themselves?”
According to him, despite the rise in federal allocations, the impact of the funds on grassroots development remains questionable. He observed that beyond the usual media hype by local government administrations, the major beneficiaries appear to be political patrons, jobbers, and sycophants who “hijack the bread, and even invade the bakery where it is baked.”
Lasisi, however, warned against placing all the blame on local government administrations. He attributed part of the problem to systemic bottlenecks, including the role of state governments, which often control or direct how local councils spend their funds. He also cited poor vision, insatiable personal needs, and lack of accountability among some local government officials as contributing factors.
“If you perform well in office, leveraging the much-talked-about increased federal allocations, with or without a political godfather, you can earn massive support from the people,” Lasisi emphasized.
He further urged council chairmen and administrators to be God-fearing and accountable stewards of public resources, reminding them that every allocation received will ultimately be accounted for—both before the people and before God.
“Let the local government bosses not turn the increased allocations into a conduit pipe for cornering the people’s money,” he cautioned.
Administration and Management of resources is ever sandwiched between selfishness and recklessness. Whereas access to more fund is applaudable but physical benefits at/in the grassroots is contestable! The Functions of Management, planning, organizing, coordinating, and control is neither efficiently nor effectively manifest in the Local Government Administration due to lack of adherence to developmental plans, inconsistent government policy and regulations as well as inadequate fiscal and budgetary information cum perforated control measures. All this contributed to aiding the government selfishness and recklessness, money appropriated are pocketed or misspent respectively with no one’s ox gored. There should be a working system to bring public servants to book, facing it’s consequences to stem the tides. So far, MORE MONEY allocated to the councils amounts to MORE MOURNING by the people rather than bringing more honey to the people.