What Did You Do with Your Allocations? Okonjo Asks Governors

The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, goes thorough in transparency by asking state governors to tell Nigerians what they do with the huge allocations they receive regularly from the Federal Government.

She said, many of the states get monetary allocations that threefold the annual budget of some neigbouring countries to Nigeria. The Minister disclosed this on Sunday while delivering convocation lecture at the Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State on a topic: ‘Transforming Nigeria’s economy: Opportunities and challenges’.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala received the university’s honorary doctorate degrees with several others at the occasion. She then urged Nigerians to be more discerning, noted that the governors had no reason not to develop their states, given the huge amounts they regularly got from Federation Account.

The Minister calls Nigerians that it is high time to hold their governors accountable over the money collect on their behalf to accelerate development of their states and see to the well-being of the people of the states.

Noting that the constitution had placed the provision of some basic public services on the concurrent list, making it the joint responsibilities of the three arms of government, she discovered and decried that Nigerians seldom asked what the governors were doing to develop their states – means they are silent on their rights.

Okonjo-Iweala said, “Clearly, the Federal Government cannot do it alone; we need the private sector to work with us and we have reached out to them in transforming Nigeria. But, in addition to that, we should ask ourselves what is the role of the state and local governments in supporting our transformation programmes.

“A lot of attention is turned on the Federal Government. So, we also need to ask what our states and local governments do with the resources they get.”

The minister said the states were getting their monthly allocations, adding that the information was being published in the media so that the people would know what accrued to the federal, state and local governments.

She added, “We need to ask more questions; poverty eradication and building of infrastructure are not only by the Federal Government. In 2013, the top 10 allocations were going to the following states: Akwa Ibom, N260bn; Rivers, N220bn; Delta N209bn; Bayelsa, N173bn; Lagos, N168bn; Kano, N140bn; Katsina, N103bn; Oyo, N100bn; Kaduna N97bn; and Borno at number 10 with N94bn.

“These were the allocations all these states got last year. The question is what did they do with the money?”

Earlier, the President and Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. James Makinde, said the institution was committed to the pursuit of academic excellence.

Makinde, who dedicated the convocation to the abducted female pupils of the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, noted that of the 1,560 graduants, 44 obtained first class from the university.

Another batch of 1,227 obtained second class upper division, while 59 candidates obtained doctorate degrees, he said.