Afe Babalola Accuses Governors Of Stealing Council Funds
The founder of Afe Babalola University in Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Chief Afe Babalola (SAN), has accused governors of misapplying financial allocations to local governments in their domains.
Chief Afe Babalola (SAN), the founder of Afe Babalola University in Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), has alleged that state governors misappropriated money allocated to them for Local Government funds within their spheres of influence.
Speaking at the eighth Afe Babalola Agricultural Expo on Thursday in Ado-Ekiti, the capital of Ekiti State, Babalola charged that the ‘inactions’ of the governors were preventing grassroots development and depriving the populace of benefits that they should typically be able to access without difficulty.
He, however, expressed his displeasure with the way governors handle the third tier of government., urging President Bola Tinubu to provide the local government its allotments straight from the Federation Account.
According to him, the Local Governments are no longer effective because the governors have turned them into an adjunct of the state government.
The ABUAD founder explained that this would lead to grassroots development and engender transparency.
He said, “I am suggesting that local governments should be empowered. Each local government should set up farming equipment for farmers to hire. They should also earmark large hectares of land for the farmers to farm.
“When I was a councillor in those days, local government funds used to come directly to them. We all know what has been happening to their money.
I think the current President (Bola Tinubu) should do all he can to ensure that local government allocations get to them directly and not through the governors because they (governors) steal a lot.
“There is no parent that will send their children to school – some to Master’s and Ph.D levels – only to come back and be asked to use cutlass to farm.
The best the government can do now to revive agriculture is to buy modern implements to encourage people to farm. If local government funds get to them, they will be able to buy tractors for the people to rent.”
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