Dr. Adetokunbo Pearse is a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party in Lagos State. Pearse, a former PDP national chairmanship aspirant and gubernatorial candidate in Lagos State was also a former member of the Atiku Abubakar 2023 presidential campaign council. In this interview, he described as suspicious the Supreme Court ruling which granted the local governments in Nigeria financial autonomy. Among other issues, he also speaks against the conduct of local government elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission. Excerpts:
What is your view on the recent Supreme Court judgement that stopped the state governors from tampering with local governments funds?
What we have in Nigeria now is a terrible situation whereby all the arms of governments that are supposed to keep the executive branch in check have been compromised. The judiciary’s image has been tarnished since the 2023 election results.
All the protests, all the petitions that went before the Supreme Court were nullified in favour of the incumbent president and his political party. Subsequent appeals have also shown that the judiciary is totally controlled by the Federal Government.
The Chief Justice is appointing his children, his cousins into positions. There is no control anymore.
So, the Supreme Court judgement is suspect because it favours the president totally and my feeling is that what we are getting now is the effort of President Tinubu to turn this country into a one-party state, and to turn it into an autocratic situation where he controls everything.
What are the implications on the judgement on the part of the governors?
Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde spoke out against this judgement and he gave examples, which are relevant in every state for every state governor.
What we have in Nigeria is this: The allocation that goes to the local governments is about N7 billion per month. As Governor Makinde explained and you would know that this is what happens in every state, the payment of salaries only in local government is about N5.3 billion out of that N7 billion. So what is left for the local governments to do sanitation, road maintenance, health, and education is not enough. It is the state governments that are subsidising the operation of local government areas.
What is a local government in Nigeria, except that it is an attachment of a state government? In every state, it is the local government areas that constitute the state. For the state governor to operate, he has to go into local government areas and build roads, maintain the roads, health, pay for sanitation and other infrastructure.
It is out of the humongous N450 billion a month that the state governments get that they are able to operate in the state, funding, subsidising the operation of the local government areas.
If you say that the states should stay where they are and allow the local governments to get their allocation to develop their areas, the councils cannot do it.
“The president wants to control every single of the 774 local government areas in Nigeria to prepare himself to become president in 2027, so that all the local councils would be beholden to him”
Why is the Federal Government doing this?
Firstly, the Federal Government wants to give the impression that the state government is not doing anything in the states and they are just using the local government money for themselves.
Now, this law wants to empower the local governments so that they can get their money directly. It is only a strategy of who pays the piper calls the tune. The president wants to control every single of the 774 local government areas in Nigeria to prepare himself to become president in 2027, so that all the local councils would be beholden to him. They would be praising the president for giving them such money.
Every penny that goes to the local government is going to be squandered because by the time they pay salaries, what is left is just enough to share among the chairman’s families, friends and his personal interests and there is none left for development.
Local governments cannot develop anything based on where we are presently, except that they would now be controlled by the Federal Government. And whichever local government area that doesn’t do the bidding of the Federal Government may be starved of funds, and would not have money to pay salaries. By the time they have paid salaries they won’t have anything for development.
The only way that we can begin to solve the problem of this country is devolution of power to the state. When we say the state, it is the state government and the local government. The local government is an appendage of the state government. It cannot be on its own unless there is enough money in the state whereby the state can now operate with local government as equal partners with all the money they raised going to the two of them together.
As it is going to be, the local government is going to be getting its money from the Federal Government separately, it will not work. It didn’t work before. In 1999, the local government used to get its money directly. It is the same Tinubu that led the protest to empower the state government so that they can take care of their local government areas. Now that he is at the federal level, he has changed his position because he is now in a position to control the whole of the Federal Government. That is why he is changing this law. It is the same thing he is doing for the removal of fuel subsidies.
Remember, in about 2012, he led a protest that subsidy removal was an attack on the people of Nigeria; that removing subsidy will damage the economy and punish the people of Nigeria that it would throw Nigerians into abject poverty. That was his position then. And when he became the president, he did exactly the opposite.
The National Assembly is proposing a bill to take away the conduct of local government elections from the state governors. What is your position on that?
It is the same thing. The judgement and this bill go hand in hand. This one is even much clearer. You remember in 1999, as I said earlier, that the local governments were getting their allocations directly from the Federal Government. They misused it; they didn’t pay salaries. They didn’t do anything with health, education, or roads. They were corrupt and inefficient. That is why we reverted to the states getting the money and they have a joint account. There is precedence for all these.
The same thing goes for INEC, which up to now, is centralised. What has been the performance of INEC since 1999? Has it conducted elections fairly? No. Has it been efficient? No. Has it been free and independent? No. He who pays the piper dictates the tune is the strategy. Before now, INEC only conducts the Federal Government elections and what happens? Corruption. inefficiency. The 2023 election that Tinubu was declared the winner was based on 31 percent of the votes coming in. It was challenged by the PDP, LP and NNPP, and the whole of Nigeria saw corruption and inefficiency in INEC.
Now that INEC would control the local government elections, it means that the corruption that was limited to the federal government is now going to be nationwide. The efficiency and corruption we have seen in INEC is now going to be seen in every local government. That is what is going to happen.
What Tinubu is going to play on is very simple. We have an imperfect system. We have some governors who are not efficient. Some governors are allegedly corrupt and that is what he is playing on in terms of the direct allocations to the local government areas. What he is also playing on with the question of this universal INEC is the same thing; saying the way the state governments conduct their local elections is very corrupt, and that a central body will do better.
This is the problem: Whatever party that is in control of the state makes sure it wins all the local government seats. Let us say, out of the 36 states, APC has 20. Those states would be controlled by the party in all local government areas. The other PDP states will be in control of all the local governments. It is a bad system.
With the Federal Government in charge, INEC can rig all the 774 local governments to make it all through APC. Now, everything will be centralised. The reason things are not functioning in Nigeria is over centralisation. Everything is under the Federal Government – Army, Police and Navy. The over centralisation of powers is what is killing Nigeria. The load is too heavy for the Federal Government.
This law and the proposed bill are even making it more and more centralised. The little decentralisation we had before, whereby local government areas had their funds in the joint account of the state, meant that states had their autonomy controlling their local governments.
With this bill before the National Assembly, it means that the states don’t have control of their local governments. Before, the local government elections conducted by governors were imperfect, but now it is going to be more imperfect with the centre conducting them. It is going to be a disaster. This government is committing a crime against God and against man.
Some Nigerians are planning to protest because of the hunger in the land. What is your take on this?
I heard that one of the president’s spokesmen, Bayo Onanuga, was accusing the Labour Party and other people of being behind the protest. Is it one political party that would tell me that I’m hungry? Is it one political party that would tell me that I’m unemployed? That I’m poorer today than I was before they took over? Is it one political party that will tell me that there is insecurity in the land? That my life is not safe, my property is not safe? When some people go to do youth service somewhere and they may never come back? Everywhere, they attack schools, travellers, estates and no place is safe; we have never been so insecure in Nigeria and nobody seems to be in charge.
Senator Ndume just alerted the government over the situation in the country and they shut him down. When Senator Ningi said there was too much corruption in the budget, they suspended him. Many media houses have been silenced.
This protest is not controlled by anybody. It will be an insult to the young people who are planning the protest to say somebody is telling them to go and protest. The cost of living is quadrupled.
You are buying one egg for N250. What of the Ghana beans we used to eat when we were growing up? About three months ago, I used to buy N300 beans for breakfast. Now, if I don’t pay N800 for that morning beans, I would not feel I have eaten anything. I asked one of my aides, who is married and has three children how he is managing. He said he buys N500 beans for his 10-year old. That even at that it would be as if he has not eaten.
You can imagine how that family of five copes. Let’s say that every member of that family is eating N500 beans for breakfast that is N2, 500. Let us say they eat two meals a day (because only very few are eating three meals a day), that means N10, 000 for food a day, which is N300, 000 for food in a month. You are now talking about N70, 000 minimum wage. What will that do?
If you don’t make N800, 000 a month in Nigeria today, you are a poor man. You have to pay for rent, school fees and transportation to work, which may not be less than N3, 000 a day. People are hungry and angry. Unemployment has gone up; poverty is on the increase, hunger is on the increase, homelessness is on the increase. People are dying every day because they could not afford the cost of medication. I know how much I pay for vitamin tablets that used to be N2, 000. Now it is N7, 500.
Any attempt to stop this protest will not be successful because this is the beginning. There could be protests until this government is driven out of office. Nobody is behind the protest, it is the reality that is pushing people to protest; they have nothing to lose.
Nigeria by now should have been a strong nation or forging to be a strong nation, but mutual suspicion among ethnic and religious groups keeps on widening the gap.
“Nigeria by now should have been a strong nation or forging to be a strong nation, but mutual suspicion among ethnic and religious groups keeps on widening the gap”
Like Bishop Kukah said that the nation is more divided than it was even during the war. What is the reason for this?
I disagree with Bishop Kukah. What you saw during EndSARS was a mass protest against the government. Even though the government would use the media to manipulate it and divide the people to say it is Igbo protest, it is Yoruba protest. No. it wasn’t.
Anywhere I go and I tell them that it was Igbo people that were in the Labour Party, they tell me no. Young people, Nigerian youth council all went for LP. These are Yoruba people. It has nothing to do with tribes anymore. It is the leaders that are still divided along religious and tribal lines. When people get to the NASS, they are all the same; it is a caucus of the privileged rich people.
Consider this; if we were so divided along ethnic lines, would Obi have won election in the Middle Belt? Would he have won the election in Lagos? If he had been able to get 12 states, would the PDP have been able to win elections in Osun State and in the South-South? Was it not the permutations of Tinubu that helped him to get the 12 states in the north? Did that have anything to do with tribe? Tinubu used some political acumen to get those states in the north. The south was not safe for him. He didn’t get much in the south, except in the South West. Out of the six states in the South West, he got four. The only person that got from his tribe totally is Obi. Do you think that Nigerians are not aware of the poor performance of the government? Do you think that Nigerians don’t know that they didn’t vote for Tinubu considering that only about 31 percent of the votes came in before he was declared winner? Don’t blame Nigerians for anything; they didn’t vote for him.
This last election shows us that Nigeria was ready for the best person that can be president. If Mahmood Yakubu didn’t give the election to Tinubu, he couldn’t have been the president. I don’t know who would have been the president, certainly not Tinubu because the votes never came in; INEC just declared him the winner and he wants what INEC did for him at the national level to be done in all the local governments.
People like me who are public analysts would continue to protest. The young people who are in the streets will continue to protest until this government is defeated. Without rigging, Tinubu won’t come back in 2027.
