The Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Osun State chapter, has expressed concern over what it termed an “unprecedented abuse of power” by certain top Federal Government officials in the management of the state’s local council funds.
Speaking at a press conference in Osogbo yesterday, the state NULGE President, Dr. Nathaniel Ogungbangbe, accused the Minister of Finance, the Accountant-General of the Federation, and the Attorney-General of the Federation of illegally diverting Osun’s local government allocations into accounts controlled by sacked All Progressives Congress (APC) chairmen and councillors.
According to him, “today, we have it on good authority that these three principal officers of the Federal Government have released the Osun State local councils’ allocations for the month of March 2025 to September 2025 to the illegal bank accounts opened by the court-sacked APC chairmen and councillors.
We find this development very scary and alarming. Paying local council allocations into privately opened and illegal bank accounts of politicians is unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented in the history of public administration in Nigeria.”
Ogungbangbe explained that the disputed accounts were created without following due process.
He maintained that the actions of the federal officials violated both the constitution and existing court rulings.
He also cautioned against eroding the rule of law, stressing that the Attorney-General of the Federation had no authority to override court judgments.
The union, while urging residents to remain calm, appealed to them not to allow “enemies of the state” to provoke unrest that could be used as a pretext to impose emergency rule in Osun.
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Osun State chapter, noted the admission by the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) that it had received federal allocations meant for the state’s local governments.
The APC had earlier issued a statement criticising the Osun branch of NULGE for condemning the payments into the disputed accounts belonging to the court-sacked APC chairmen and councillors. In that statement, the APC acknowledged that the allocations were received but claimed they were deposited “into the local government councils’ accounts” rather than into the personal accounts of its members or leaders.
In response, the PDP challenged the APC to reveal the specific accounts into which the allocations were deposited and the individuals authorized to sign those accounts.
A statement issued by the state PDP chairman, Sunday Bisi, described the APC’s earlier response as an admission of wrongdoing against the people of Osun.
The statement reads in part: “Rather than engaging in name-calling and reckless propaganda against the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), we challenge the APC to come clean before the people of Osun State by publicly disclosing the exact bank accounts into which the local government allocations were paid and the signatories to those accounts. The APC should also disclose the amount in each of the accounts.
“We demand these details because all the statutory officers of all the 30 Local Governments who should be aware of the payment are not aware of it. These officers manage all the accounts of the local governments. They have not seen a dime in any of their local government accounts. Also, none of the state accountant general, the auditor-general for local governments and the ministry of local governments is aware of the payments or where they were paid into.”
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