Despite huge allocations LGs remain ‘financial black holes’– Agora Policy
Orisemeke Benjamin
The Executive Director of Agora Policy, Malam Waziri Adio, has described Nigeria’s 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) as “financial black holes,” despite receiving some of the highest statutory revenue allocations globally.
Speaking Thursday at the Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa (CSEA) in Abuja at the close-out ceremony of the think-tank’s second Policy Writing Fellowship (PWF) and the unveiling of the Local Governance Accountability (LGA) Portal, Adio canvassed for evidence-based policymaking and participatory governance.
He noted that the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution empowers LGAs with critical functions, backed by 20.60% of statutory revenue, 35% of VAT, and 10% of states’ internal revenues, making them the best-resourced councils globally after Switzerland.
”Enormous resources are pouring into our LGAs. From FAAC alone, the least allocation to an LGA is about N500 million monthly. Alimosho LGA received N4.9 billion for January 2026 alone. But our LGAs are almost a black hole; where government should be felt the most is where it is absent the most,” Adio lamented.
He urged citizens to use the portal to demand accountability, stating that “data without agency is just a set of numbers.” The event graduated 22 fellows who produced individual policy papers on topics ranging from artificial intelligence to air quality.
In his goodwill message, the Executive Chairman of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), Dr. Abdullahi Usman Bello, lauded Agora Policy and the MacArthur Foundation for this visionary initiative aimed at promoting grassroots transparency.
Bello disclosed that the CCB has completed asset declaration verifications for high-risk public servants, including 19 Ministers, 37 Permanent Secretaries, 20 Heads of Agencies, and 32 other high-profile officials.
”The Bureau has also secured the forfeiture of several assets, including a property in London. We have referred numerous cases to the Code of Conduct Tribunal, and just yesterday we arraigned the Chief of Staff to a State Governor,” Bello stated.
He announced that the CCB’s Online Asset and Liabilities Declaration System is 100 per cent developed, adding that the bureau welcomes partnerships to enhance responsible public access to relevant governance data without compromising the security of declarants.
The portal provides free access to financial allocations to local councils from 1999 to date, alongside council profiles and elected officials’ names to enhance transparency, accountability, and ethical conduct in public service across the federation.
