INTERVIEW: Dapo Abiodun believed Gbenga Daniel sponsored me to discredit his government, says ex-LG chair Wale Adedayo

In August 2023, Wale Adedayo, then chairman of Ijebu East LGA in Ogun state, was suspended for three months over allegations of maladministration and financial mismanagement. His suspension eventually led to his impeachment after which he was invited by the Department of State Services (DSS) to clarify the allegations against him.

In this interview with TheCable’s ABDULSALAM ABDULLAH, the former LG chair spoke on issues surrounding his dismissal from office and addressed the supreme court’s judgement granting financial autonomy to LGAs and its impact on states.

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TheCable: When you were the chairman of Ijebu East, what was the highlight of your tenure?

Adedayo: The summary of everything is that, you know, when you were campaigning to be in that position, you would have promised the people some things. But after getting there, you now discover that there is no money to carry out those things.

I don’t believe in this federal allocation thing that we do in Nigeria. I’m a firm believer in the fact that the federating units of the country should take control of the resources that God has given them. What we are doing in Nigeria is just pure stealing. The money belongs to the Niger Delta, another place where we have natural resources. It doesn’t belong to us.

Basically, I had programmed myself to accept the fact that whatever functions are given to the local government according to the constitution, from there, we can generate enough resources. But that is a problem because the local government cannot collect tenement rates. This is part of the responsibility—in fact, a major responsibility of the local government—that you have to collect tenement rates from property owners in your local government.

The state is collecting the tenement rate. Then, all these motor parks and whatever national or road names you call them ought to be paying the local government daily. That also has been taken over by the state. So, where do you get the funds to run your local government? The major challenge has been funds. You can’t keep up with electoral promises, talkless of doing other things.

TheCable: Last year, you were impeached as the chairman of your LGA. Can you shed more light on your allegations against Dapo Abiodun, the governor of Ogun, regarding the hijacking of funds meant for local government in the state?

Adedayo: The reality is that it was not something that was supposed to become a media thing. A few local government chairmen in Ogun state had been talking about it. We can’t continue like this. There are no funds to execute projects or to do anything in the office. How do we get the governor to release this money to us? But each of the leaders we talked to backed out. They didn’t want to get involved.

So, it got to a stage where the outgoing chairman of Ijebu-Ode LGA, Alhaji Gazal, called me on a Saturday to say that five of them had met and they agreed on some things that they wanted to put on paper that maybe we could send to Olusegun Osoba. While we were doing that, we were worried, given the situation of the last election, that the people would develop a kind of hatred for the All Progressive Congress in Ogun state. Nobody wanted to vote for us, and there was no other reason other than the fact that the local government chairmen were not doing anything. So, we were afraid of our political future. Because if the party should go down, then that means we’re going down with the party. We should do something now to make sure that the party doesn’t go down.

He said: “Wale, you are the only journalist among us. You have to help us put these things together.”

But I think I committed a fundamental mistake there. The letter I wrote should have been on the letterhead of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), but I used my local government letterhead.

The second thing was that by the time the letter was finished, others ought to have put their names so that all of us would sign. I was the only one who signed, maybe because of the haste with which we did it. We held a meeting at Abeokuta South Local Government where we voted on the content of the letter, and 17 of us voted in favour of it. So, instead of giving it to each person to sign there, I didn’t do that. It was just my name that was on it.

TheCable: Can you provide the names of the 17 LGA chairmen who voted in favour?

Adedayo: Only three people opted out. Ijebu North East, Odeda, and Obafemi were the three LGAs that opted out.

TheCable: How did you respond to the impeachment, and what do you plan to do next?  

Adedayo: The suspension was illegal; the impeachment was also illegal because, if we go through the local government laws of Ogun state, they did not follow one single step. But I know what happened. I don’t blame them. I relate to them. I don’t see them as opponents, enemies, or whatever. You can imagine that my local government is still a bit far from here. But we still have two local governments before you get to my own, and the councillors were not staying there.

Before I was impeached, they were no longer there. They were staying in Abeokuta. The state government sent a bus to pick them up with policemen. On the day of my suspension, about 100 policemen were at my local government’s secretariat. Maybe they thought that the people were going to fight. I told everybody they didn’t need to fight. I always tell people to put their hopes and trust in God.

No matter how much you are prosecuted today, no matter how badly you are treated, somewhere along the line, whoever believes he has ultimate power, that person was created by God. No matter what kind of power or authority that person has, God has superior authority over that person. So that was why I told everybody that if we start here since it affects everybody, the thing will go around, and I don’t want another EndSARS situation so that other people will not hijack a good protest for their negative ends. That was why I just told them to calm down. But more than 100 mobile policemen were sent to my local government that day.

We took them to court last year. Olumide-Fusika, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), is my lawyer. We filed a suit at the Ijebu Ode high court last year. We are still on it.

TheCable: What is the latest development regarding the court case?

Adedayo: It was adjourned, I think, till October.

TheCable: You accused the governor of withholding statutory federal allocations due to the LGAs for two years. Is there evidence to support this claim?

Adedayo: The evidence is there. It’s in government coffers. The only thing you need to do is very simple. Go and check the local government account. Who manages these funds? I am sure that no local government chairman does that. We have a monthly JAC meeting, but by the time you enter the venue of the JAC meeting, there’s an attendance register, which you have to sign. You sign by the door, and you go inside to sit down.

But at the end of that JAC meeting, it is the attendance register that you sign, whether you disagree with what was discussed there or not; you have already signed. That is what we attach to the minutes of the resolution reached at the JAC meeting, that everybody accepted what transpired. Before the meeting started, they would have given everybody a sheet on how the money went. A sheet that I don’t know anything about. If I don’t know anything about how the money went, how can I speak about it?

Even in the account to which the money was sent, I don’t have the authority as local government chairman to operate it. We can’t get money from that account. No matter the kind of letter I write to the bank or the kind of thing I tell them, you cannot access the account as a local government chairman. The account can only be accessed by those in Abeokuta

TheCable: Are you the first person to come out publicly to say this? Has this practice existed for a long time?

Adedayo: When we met with the governor and the secretary of state government, what I told them was very simple. I said just revert to how things were being done under Chief Osoba and Gbenga Daniel when they were governor. When Daniel was governor, money was going to the local government and I told him that this money we were talking about was not coming into my account.

We have 20 local governments in Ogun state. We have 236 wards. Till today, there is no ward among the 236 where you won’t see a project with Gbenga Daniel’s name on it and I told Mr. Governor [Dapo Abiodun] that Daniel did not do those projects. Those projects were done by the local government. If you release this money today, it’s your name that people will be shouting, not our names. Who knows local government chairmen? You are the popular one; you are the governor; you are the one that everybody is looking at.

Meanwhile, it is the local governments that will be working, but when the local governments don’t have money, it will look as if you are not working. Whatever you are doing ought to be supported by the local governments so that people will be praising your government. By not releasing this money, by not allowing us to work, for God’s sake, you are hurting yourself.

Projects that you see Gbenga Daniel’s name on were there just to honour him, not that he did the projects. I remember working with the governor then. There has to be approval from the state, up to a certain limit. I think the limit should then be about N10 million or so. For any spending above N10 million, you have to seek approval from the state. So, for generations to come, a lot of people would think it was Daniel who did the projects.

TheCable: What was Abiodun’s response when you told him how the former governor ran the LGAs? 

Adedayo: That was the sad part of it. He believed that it was Daniel who sponsored me to write the letter to Chief Osoba. That has been his argument all through because I used Daniel as an example.

At my age, I’m 58. So, even before I got to this age, my colleagues knew me well. Check my background. I was sacked from The Guardian Newspaper back in 1996. I was sacked there because I wouldn’t let you tutor me on what I should do.

That was 1996, and this is 2024. So, in 2024, somebody cannot be sponsoring me. How old was I then, when I became chairman in 1996? So, at this age, somebody will still be telling me what to do.

TheCable: On July 11, the supreme court granted financial autonomy to LGAs. What do you think of the judgement?

Adedayo: I felt fulfilled after seeing the judgement because it is something that I’ve been wishing for. It’s something you’ve been praying for—that a strong hand, stronger than these governors, will just come from nowhere and make sure that money gets straight into the hands of the local government chairman, and that’s precisely what has happened.

That’s why I said the God of our fathers is stronger than all these foreign lords. I’m telling you. Olodumare is the best. It was Olodumare who did it. Nobody, not even Mr. President, put it together. It was Olodumare who helped him achieve that, because a lot of people believed it was impossible. My lawyer told me that the case would not come to fruition, that it wouldn’t work out, and that the federal government would lose. But Olodumare did it. As I said earlier, some think they have power. Some think they have authority, but they have forgotten that there is one who created them and put them in that position. Whether for good or bad, they always forget the aspect of Olodumare. But it is just Act I. I’m sure that Act II is still coming. I do not doubt it.

TheCable: Do you feel vindicated?

Adedayo: Not just vindicated. The thing is, if what the ancestors are telling me is correct, there will be judgement for some people, and their families will weep for them. I’m telling you, out of this thing, their families will weep for them because of what they have done and because of what they continue to do.

TheCable: As regards the judgement, how do you think it will impact the funding and administration of local governments in Ogun state and the country?

Adedayo: Positively. Part of this funding thing you’re talking about is that, till tomorrow, people still compare the OGD (Olugbenga Denial) administration with what we have today. They tell you there is no money in town.

I was explaining to somebody yesterday. I said if you’re a local government chairman, primary school is under your authority. Primary care centres are under your authority.

Most of these primary schools are now dilapidated. You need to invite carpenters to come and roof them. You pay the carpenter you are giving that project to. You need to go to the market to buy planks. The woman, whom the man is buying from, will have money to feed her family. Even the carpenter himself will have money to feed his family. He won’t spend the money alone. Even for the family members who are not part of his immediate family, there’s no way he won’t throw out something to help them. The money will go around. People are just greedy, and they don’t have a conscience. If they do what they need to do, money will go around, and everybody will be happy.

Okay, go and renovate. Somebody will supply cement, sand, and even water in places where water is scarce. They will take money home, and the thing will go around. It will help the local economy to boom. But when someone up there is greedy, all those things will not happen, and people will be suffering.

You need to take your mind back to the past. Was it like this in the past? In the past, they had full control. So, why is it different now? It is one of the reasons why we are having problems today. You are deviating from what was laid down, and once you deviate, you are going to have problems. You have to go back. That’s the lowest level of governance.

The people who should work the most are the local governments. If the local government doesn’t work, there’s nothing that the state or federal government can achieve in terms of governance.

The first place where governance will make sense is at the local government level.

TheCable: Would you love to propose any reforms to ensure accountability? 

Adedayo: Houses of assembly must be up to the task in their jobs. But right now, it is as if we don’t have houses of assembly in Nigeria. What the supreme court did, or let me say what the federal government just achieved, if it were the houses of assembly, who could have done that?

Primarily, according to the constitution, it is not even the governor who has power over the local government. It is the house of assembly. But have any of them ever looked into the finances of the local government? Has any of them ever tried to check the governors on what they have been doing?

Not one, so we need quality people at the level of the houses of assembly too.

The community development associations shouldn’t just sit and say they are not part of the government. They are not bothered or whatever. They should be bothered. They should show more interest in what is going on at the local government level now. They can ask for an account of what is going on because they are part of the local government, and in fact, before the election comes, I want to believe that it is part of what I want to advocate for: that community development associations around that place should jointly or individually sponsor candidates, or sponsor a candidate irrespective of political party. Just do it based on individuals.

There is nobody you wouldn’t know in your local area. You know their background; you know where they are coming from. For God’s sake, get people in your local area who can be councillors; if they are not interested, go and convince them; go and cry to their wives that we need this man to change our street. We need this man to change our area. If it is a woman, go and talk to her husband. If they don’t want money, contribute money for them to print posters and whatever they need for the campaign so that they’ll go there and make a difference.

Some people have been chairmen of community development associations, and they have done very well over the years. Why are we not pushing such people into local government chairmanship positions?

There are some people in the senate today who are supposed to be local government chairmen. If you really want to serve the people, the major place where you can serve is at the local government level.

If there is anything I’m going to say now, it is that INEC should take over the conduct of local government elections. If INEC should take over, that would go a long way toward financial autonomy.

TheCable: But there are agitations among some Nigerians that INEC should not be trusted, considering some people’s feelings about the last presidential election. Do you think INEC can perform better with LGA elections?

Adedayo: Is there any election in Nigeria where INEC has ever been trusted? Losers will always complain. That is natural. By and large, if you compare INEC with state electoral commissions, they are a far cry from each other. If you say the states should conduct local government elections now, they’ll clear up the whole thing. It was your party that won. Even in areas where your party lost during your election as governor, you’ll still win that place. So, don’t compare INEC with state independent electoral commissions.

TheCable: If you had the chance to be Ogun governor, would you take it?

Adedayo: I thought that was going to be your first question. People are calling me for that already; I’m just taking my time. I’m waiting for God to talk to me. Once Olodumare gives me the go-ahead, I’ll go there for it, but at least I’ve had about three offers on that from three different solid people.

TheCable: Under which political party are you going to contest?

Adedayo: I’m a member of APC; I won’t say more than that. But already, people are talking to me about that. We’ll make a difference. Within six months, you’ll know that.

See, go back to Lagos. Jakande spent just four years, and I’m sure that in the next hundred years, what Jakande did in Lagos will still be there. You don’t need eight years to prove yourself as somebody who can perform.

How many years did Awolowo spend as the premier of the Western Region?

Somebody wrote on Facebook today; the guy was praising Bodija House. He didn’t put Awolowo’s name. My comment was, Why didn’t you put the man’s name, the man who did it? He didn’t do it for more than four years. He was able to achieve all those things. Look at the number of people he put in schools.

Cocoa House, the First Civil Session, and all those things—free education. That shows a man who thought before he went there. He knew the problems; he knew the challenges, and he was ready with the solution along with his team.

It is not when you get there that you start thinking; look at the UK. When this guy was the prime minister, did it take him six months to name his ministers? No, no, 48 hours later, his ministers’ list was ready.

That’s a man ready to work. But here, you are named governor now. In the next three months, we’re still talking about it. We just picked some special advisors—maybe some fans who are around you.

In the next six months, you’re still looking for a list of commissioners, which means that guy cannot even perform if you give him 10 years to plan this.  But don’t worry; we’ll talk to you guys then.

TheCable: People call you Babalawo (Ifa priest). I can recall vividly that the very first day we spoke, you did tell me on the phone that you were a Christian, but you converted to Islam. Is there any reason for this?

Adedayo: You know, life is a journey. As you walk along that journey, there’s no way you will not come across truths and untruths. I was born into a Muslim family, but I went to a Christian primary school. I remember being a library prefect in my primary school. So, there’s no way such things will not influence you as you grow up.

But somewhere along the line, I think what helped me the most was the master’s programme I did in the UK; it exposed me to a lot of things, not just Islam and Christianity, but background about other religions too. I discovered that what God gave to us back in Africa is even more superior to all these foreign religions. It was my education in the UK that decided that for me. I’m a Muslim, but I call myself a Yoruba Muslim. My Islamic name is Saliu, but I’m a Yoruba Muslim.