Yemisi Izuora
The confidence and faith reposed in President Muhammadu Buhari that earned him another term in office has been reaffirmed , going by the recent unprecedented conviction of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Nkanu Onnoghen .
According to Vincent Uba, National Coordinator , “No Alternative To Buhari- Osinbajo 2019 ( NATBO 2019), “In deed the heightened expectations of the citizenry of a renewed anti- graft fight by the Buhari led government has not been misplaced, going by the latest directive from the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, which was recently separated from EFCC.
The NFIU has set June 1st as the takeoff date for its new directive, banning any transaction by any local government account without money first reaching the local government account, thus all local governments’allocations are to be paid directly into their respective bank accounts.
Additionally , the NFIU directed that no cash withdrawal in excess of N500,000 per day should be made and has forwarded the guide line to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN , the other anti-graft agencies such as EFCC, ICPC & other financial institutions with a provision for sanctions to any defaulting institutions.
Uba noted that the NFIU found that the cash withdrawal and transactions of the state and joint local government accounts posed the biggest corruption, money laundering and security threats at the grassroots levels & the country as a whole .
He commended the development, since Nigerians are all witnesses to what has been going on in our local governments which have remained a shadow of themselves from what they used to be in the past .
“With the Creation of joint local government account, the governors practically become in charge of local government funds . The financial autonomy of this third tier of government disappeared and most state governments routinely diverted the funds allocated to the local governments .
NATBO 2019, while commending the President for NFIU decision, urges him to give NFIU all the necessary support and encouragement it requires to fully implement this latest decision that has received applauses from across the land, since it was made public by the agency.”, Uba said.
Uba, also appealed to the state governors as a matter of patroitism not to frustrate this move ,eventhough it will obviously be a drain in their personal resources as it currently obtains , for the good of the populace they govern, adding, “One can not but be happy for this turn of events as the local government can finally be free from the hegemony of the governors who hitherto saw the local government funds as free money . A new lease of life has consequently come to the local governments.”
With this development, Uba noted, the people can then hold local government chairmen accountable for the implimentations of campaign promises .
The group therefore congratulate president Muhammadu Buhari for his achievements in the anti- corruption fight and his unrelenting commitment to sanitizing, restoring and moving this country to a glorious future.