The convener of the BAT Ideological Group, Hon. Bamidele Atoyebi, has thrown his full weight behind President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s threat to use an executive order to enforce local government financial autonomy on state governments, a move he says was vital for genuine grassroots development.

President Tinubu has repeatedly warned state governors that he may issue an executive order compelling direct allocation of funds to local government councils if they continue to bypass the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment granting financial independence to local governments.

The apex court ruled that allocations meant for the third tier of government must be paid directly into their accounts, a decision many governors have yet to fully implement.  

Fielding questions from reporters, Atoyebi said: “Tinubu’s executive order to the governors? This is the Tinubu I know, this is the Tinubu I will support. Even in my sleep, this is why I support President Tinubu.”

He described local government autonomy as the backbone for sustainable development in Nigeria, insisting that “there is no proper development that can take place without full implementation of supreme order on local government autonomy.”

Atoyebi pointed to Lagos State as an example, where local governments have operated with a significant degree of independence even before the Supreme Court ruling, attributing the practice to Tinubu’s long-held belief in devolving power to the grassroots.

“Imagine, Lagos has been allowing local government to operate freely even before Supreme Court’s order on local government autonomy because they know that this is Tinubu’s idea,” he said, adding that “without local government autonomy, the grassroots people cannot feel the impact of governance.”

The BAT Ideological Group convener lamented that, despite the court’s directive, “a lot of governors are still not giving the local governments their rightful share,” noting that many local councils lack even basic functional structures like procurement departments.

He also argued that many local governments across the country are overstretched, making effective administration difficult.

“Any state that is serious about development will consider creating more Local Councils Development Areas just like Tinubu did in Lagos. Many of the existing local governments are too big; the wards and communities under them are too large,” Atoyebi said, adding that with proper analysis, the creation of additional councils should not pose a problem.

He noted that some states, including Ekiti, are already exploring such options as a way of deepening grassroots governance.

Beyond constitutional reforms, Atoyebi revealed that the BAT Ideological Group has taken practical steps to bridge governance gaps through an initiative known as BAT Home-Cell.

“We came up with BAT Home-Cell so there will be a smaller, more accessible unit of help for the people, almost like a mobile local government,” he said.

According to him, the initiative is designed to identify and address community-level needs quickly, questioning why similar innovative structures have not been adopted by state and local governments.

“If an ordinary political support group can come up with such a strategic idea, what is stopping the state and local governments from doing the same?” he asked.

Atoyebi, however, attributed the poor performance of many councils to lack of access to funds, pointing out that several local governments do not even have functional procurement departments.

“If there is no local government autonomy, no procurement department, how will they build roads or provide water, healthcare, and security among other things?” he queried.

He lamented that despite years of federal budgetary provisions for social amenities, the impact remains limited at the grassroots due to financial bottlenecks imposed by state governments.

“The local governments are the main tier responsible for these things, but they cannot function because they don’t have access to the funds meant for these projects,” he said.

He welcomed the executive order threat as “a welcomed idea” and said the BAT Ideological Group “fully supports the president to carry out this threat.” 

Atoyebi also criticised some state officials for refusing to disclose whether local government funds are being fully released.

“We’ve conducted a lot of background investigations to find out if the state governments are releasing their funds to them or not but a lot of them are hiding,” he said. “They don’t want to talk and be implicated.”

The group leader urged the president to take the enforcement of the order seriously, insisting it “is the only thing that can help this government and take serious development impact to the grassroots people.”

Atoyebi further argued that many citizens mistakenly blame the presidency for governance failures at the local level, not realising that “there is government closer to them at the grassroots level who should care for them.”

He said that state governments have often “stiffened the neck of the local government chairmen by collecting their allocation from them and giving them stipends,” a practice he said undermines real development.

“Real development cannot happen with all these,” Atoyebi concluded.