The Ondo State Government has refuted the claim that local government chairpersons receive ₦5 million to run the affairs of the councils in the state.
The Commissioner for Information, Idowu Ajanaku, stated this on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Wednesday, while reacting to an allegation that some councils do not receive their statutory allocations.
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He said there was no evidence that the state government tampered with council funds.
He also explained that the discrepancy over funding of local governments could be addressed if the councils did not operate joint accounts with the state governments.
“There is nowhere on record that the Ondo State Government has taken a single penny of local government funds that come to the state,” Ajanaku said.
Joint Account Issue
He explained that the discrepancy over funding of local governments could be addressed if the councils did not operate joint accounts with the state governments.
“Despite the Supreme Court judgment, there are a lot of constitutional issues that need to be addressed, and one of such constitutional issues is the issue of a joint account between the local governments and the state, which up till now has not been repealed because the implementation of the Supreme Court judgment has not come in,” the commissioner.
Open To Probe
The commissioner, however, said the state government welcomes the idea of a probe of the LG accounts by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
“Ondo State Government cannot touch a penny in the accounts of the money that comes to local governments in Ondo State. I don’t know where they got their information that the Ondo State government is giving ₦4 million or ₦5 million.
“If they have proof, let them bring it out. And if they have any of such local government chairmen that has made that complaint, such a local government chairman should come into the public domain to make that assertion with proof,” he added.
LG Autonomy
Ondo, a South-West state, has 18 local government areas.
Funding for councils, regarded as the closest tier of government to the grassroots, has been recurring issues in states.
In July 2024, the Supreme Court granted autonomy to all the 774 local government areas in the country following a suit filed by the Federal Government through the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation.
But a former Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola, has said that it would be unrealistic to expect the local governments in Nigeria to function independently under the current Constitution.
Fashola, who spoke on Channels Television’s Sunrise in July 19, 2025, said local councils cannot carry out their responsibilities based on the interference of the state houses of assembly and state governments.
The former minister of power, works, and housing explained that the fact that the state houses of assembly make laws for local governments is an external influence that contradicts the idea of autonomy.
“I think that the debate we must have, debate we must have, is whether we really want autonomous local governments. It’s a debate that must be had. As it stands today, it is unrealistic to expect autonomy for local governments created by the Constitution
“They were not meant to be autonomous; that is my view after a very close reading of certain provisions of the Constitution. Some of those provisions provide, for example, that the local government in its economic activities and all of that will have laws made for it by the state House of Assembly,” he said.
