Chief Femi Odufowokan, an avowed disciple of late Chief Bola Ige, is the Chairman of Ijebu North East Local Government Area of Ogun State and a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview with some journalists, including Reporter, Seyi Taiwo-Oguntuase, he bared his mind on various issues affecting local government administrations, Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s performance in Ogun State, among other issues. Excerpts:
The general belief is that the governors take local government money and release token to them. Is that the practice in Ogun State?
It is possible that it happens like that in some other states or in Ogun State before the present administration came on board. With due sense of honesty, our Governor does not touch local government funds, but rather he has been augmenting the local government. All the local government chairmen meet to share the money that comes into the state monthly at Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) meeting. Our Governor has been very transparent with finances in Ogun State. Anytime he commissions any project, he publicly announces the amount that completes the project, and if you do a comparative analysis of such project, it is always cheaper and qualitative.
If your claims are correct, why are you people talking about small money being given to the LGs? Also, is it true that what is often published in the dailies by FG as allocations to the LGs are usually smaller than what eventually comes to the LG?
Thanks for your twin questions. The claims are relatives. What I am saying in effect is that whatever amount that comes to the local government can be said to be small in relation to the responsibilities of the local government. If my monthly recurrent expenditures suppose to be N55m and my allocation is N45m I will say that the allocation is small because relatively I cannot pay my council bills for the month if the Internally Generated Revenue will not fill the gap- whereas in some LGs where there total monthly recurrent expenditures is N30m if they have N45m allocation they cannot complain of small allocation. Mind you what was adequate as allocation few years ago is grossly inadequate today for many reasons. Rightly or wrongly, government overhead normally increases over time particularly local government. Take my local government for example; my salaries bill today is about double of what previous administrations were paying. This is due to promotion of some staffs, employment of more staff by the last administration, When the last administration were doing it, they claim they were creating jobs by employing people before they left office without considering the government ability to pay. It is that problem that we are facing today. Our governor does not like the idea of downsizing. Ordinarily if it were to be private sector, we would have downsized, social service is part of governance. If you know the number of people that depend on each worker, one will not think of down-sizing as an option. Coming to the second aspect of your question, that is where a lot of people miss the point. What is published and what comes to council. Like I said earlier, all the chairmen with other relevant stakeholders meets monthly to share whatever comes from Abuja to all the local governments. In Ogun State we share according to indices, but there are certain payments that are put in first line charge, such as payment of primary school teachers, their pensions, their leave bonus, among others. All these payments are for the benefits of teachers in respective local governments. It is what is left that is remitted to the local government, if you add that figure to the figures of payment on first line charge, it will tally with what is published in the papers. As far as Ogun State is concerned under Senator Ibikunle Amosun, that is how it is.
Will you say you have performed well as local government chairman? If your answer is yes, what are your achievements in office?
I don’t think I should be the person that will answer the question. This is due to the fact that you will hardly see anybody in this part of the world that will assess him/her negatively but having said that we have been able to do some visible projects and also bring some ideas that are having positive impact on the council area. Among the visible projects we executed are constructions of two blocks of classroom at Ipari Nla, two blocks of classroom with head teacher office at Iwaye. Also two blocks of classroom with head teacher office at Imowo primary school. All these schools mentioned were also provided with toilets and chairs and desk for the pupils. Also we built the bridge that link Orunwa and Ifodo within the local government. Also we provided four boreholes in different communities within the local government. Within the time we came on board, we resuscitated the council poultry farm that has been abandoned before we came into office. We also built ICT Centre for computer training for both staff and general public. We have been able to acquire internet VSAT to link the local government into the world and built a functional website for our local government. We also repair the council grader and have been able to grade several kilometers of roads. We have been doing palliative measure on our major road from Erunwon to Ijebu Igbo since we came on board some portion of the road are bad. These among others are visible projects that we have been able to do within the short time we came on board. I need to mention that we have been very prudent in managing the government resources at our disposal, I will leave whoever that is assessing us to decide whether or not we have performed with what we have been able to do with limited resources available to us and time frame.
How will you assess the performance of the State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun?
Let me say that what I am going to say about the state governor is factual and with all sense of honesty. He (Amosun) has performed beyond expectation. There is no rationale human being who knows how Ogun State was before he came on board and what is on the ground now that will not come to the conclusion that he has performed beyond expectation. Talk about education, security, environmental issue, road construction, Agriculture, and so on. I am sure you would have passed through Ijebu Ode , look at Mobalefon junction and Lagos garage. Even before getting to Ijebu Ode from Lagos, at the second Sagamu junction, if you look at your right hand side and at Jelabo, Ilishan junction, that is to your left hand side on the express, you would have seen wonders. This is just a tip of an iceberg. If you go to other areas like Ota, Imeko, Oja-Odan, Ilaro, Ayetoro and of course Abeokuta. Senator Ibikunle Amosun has changed the faces of many areas with the massive road constructions and bridges that have never been done by any state governor in Ogun State. Even the oppositions in Ogun State admitted that the governor has performed well except when they want to play politics because they cannot imagine how he manage to be executing those massive projects with the little allocations Ogun State gets as federal allocations. Beyond bricks and mortals, there are some many areas he has performed well like I said earlier. Look at security, we all know the situation in Ogun state before he came on board and we know the situation now. People can sleep with their two eyes closed now and frequent clashes between rivals cult groups and unions have reduced drastically if not eradicated completely. All these are due to proactive and positive measures put in place by the governor. It is because of achievements within the last two and half years that many segments of Ogun State people are endorsing him for a second term in office.
But some sections of your party (APC), in particular the National Assembly caucus said such endorsement is null and void?
They are entitled to their opinion just like other segments of the society. If you look at the membership of the National Assembly caucus, they are ten in number, seven House of Representatives and three Senators. We have two hundred and thirty-six counselors in Ogun State and twenty local government chairmen, all of them are elected just like the National Assembly members. The Two hundred and thirty-six counselors had endorsed the governor for the second term, also all the twenty local government chairmen. The state House of Assembly members are not counted. If two hundred and fifty-six elected representatives of Ogun people decided out of their own volition to endorse a performing governor and another ten elected representatives said the endorsement is not valid, what then is democracy? At any case, they may not understand what endorsement means, it simply means the endorser is or are identifying and recommending the endorsee as the governor for another term in office. It does not amount to party primary or election proper. Individual or group of people can endorse. This is the usual practice in United States of America where we copy democracy. In marketing practice, we endorse products and services. It does not amount to compulsion that the customer must buy, it is just recommendation based on professional competence on the product or services.