Former local government chairman Wale Adedayo claims he was impeached and briefly imprisoned after raising concerns over the management of council allocations in Ogun State

Former local government chairman Wale Adedayo has alleged that he was impeached and briefly detained after publicly questioning the management of local government allocations in Ogun State, claims that add to the ongoing national debate over local government financial autonomy.

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Speaking in a recent interview, Adedayo said he spent three days in prison in Abeokuta after accusing the state government of failing to remit statutory allocations directly into official local government accounts.

“I did three days in Abeokuta prison. They said I was lying that they didn’t remove local government money, that they are paying it. They said I wanted to turn the citizens against the government. The case is still there,” Adedayo said.

According to the former council chairman, the official local government account opened during his tenure did not receive the allocations he expected.

“The official local government account that we opened ourselves, they didn’t pay any money into it.

The one the state opened was the one the money was going into, but it was our name and phone number they used to open the account. None of us had access to the account,” he alleged.

Adedayo further claimed that although he received transaction alerts showing deposits and withdrawals, he could not operate the account.

“We would see alerts of ₦200 million when the money entered and when they withdrew it, and we also saw the balance,” he said.

He alleged that other local government chairmen had been reluctant to raise similar concerns for fear of facing political consequences.

“The others don’t want to complain the way I did because they don’t want to be impeached the way I was impeached,” he claimed.

Adedayo argued that resolving the issue would require intervention from both the legislative and executive arms of government.

“The solution can only come from the House of Assembly and the President himself because when they removed the subsidy, the money they got was added to the allocations to help citizens,” he said.

He also claimed that political considerations could complicate federal intervention, alleging that governors play a significant role in electoral mobilisation.

The allegations come amid heightened public scrutiny of local government finances following the push for greater fiscal autonomy for Nigeria’s 774 local government councils.

In July 2024, the Supreme Court of Nigeria ruled that allocations from the Federation Account should be paid directly to constitutionally recognised local governments, declaring that state governments should not withhold or control funds meant for local councils.

Governor Dapo Abiodun and the Ogun State Government have previously maintained that they operate within the law in the administration of local government finances.

The specific allegations made by Adedayo have not been independently verified, and there was no immediate public response from the state government to these latest claims at the time of writing.