Ex-council chairman faults El-Rufai’s claim on Kaduna LG funds

Kabiru Jarimi, a former chairman of Kaduna south LGA, has refuted claims by Nasir el-Rufai, former governor of the state, that his administration did not interfere with local government allocations.

El-Rufai had stated that under his tenure, local governments were granted full autonomy and received their allocations without deductions.

However, speaking to journalists in Kaduna on Sunday, Jarimi, who also served as secretary of the Kaduna state chapter of the Association of Local Governments in Nigeria (ALGON), said LG funds were “routinely deducted without approval”.

“I was shocked by El Rufai’s comment because  local government funds were deducted without our approval. Most of the deductions targeted Southern Kaduna LGAs,” he said.

“We never got our full allocations under El-Rufai. His government kept introducing policies to deduct funds unnecessarily. I even considered resigning. At times, we had no funds for overhead costs after paying salaries.”

Jarimi said el-Rufai justified the deductions as necessary to settle workers’ salaries and employed various means to withdraw additional funds.

The former council chairman cited the creation of Kaduna Capital Territory Authority, Zaria Metropolitan Authority and Kafanchan Municipal Authority as “conduits for shortchanging local governments”.

“Salaries were shared 60-40 between the capital territories and LGs around them. In Kaduna South, deductions were made in the name of sanitation, forcing us to remit funds to the Kaduna Capital Territory Authority (KCTA) every month,” he said.

Jarimi also claimed that local governments outside the capital territories faced similar deductions, with funds withdrawn for security and “riot damage” purposes.

“We contributed to a security fund, yet no former LGA chairman can account for how it was used. The same applies to the riot damage fund; no LGA benefited from it. I challenge the former governor to explain where the money went,” he added.

Jarimi commended Uba Sani, the current governor, for reversing many of el-Rufai’s policies, including the abolition of the capital, metropolitan, and municipal authorities, as well as the security and riot damage funds.