Stop giving govs excess funds, they’re agents of underdevelopment – Vatsa tells Tinubu

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Jonathan Vatsa, has urged President Bola Tinubu to stop sending what he described as “excess money” to state governors, accusing them of diverting resources meant for development and worsening the hardship faced by Nigerians.

Vatsa, a former Niger State Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, said the country’s economic pain was not due to lack of funds but because many governors had failed to use increased federal allocations to improve the lives of their people.

He stated this on Saturday in Minna while reacting to President Tinubu’s recent warning to governors against spending public funds on flyovers in areas with little traffic instead of prioritising projects that directly impact citizens.

Vatsa explained that the President’s comments showed he was beginning to recognise that many governors had become “the biggest problem” confronting both his administration and the ruling APC.

According to him, ” These are agents of underdevelopment. The President should stop giving them excess money because the people don’t feel the impact”.

The APC chieftain argued that despite receiving significantly higher monthly allocations since the removal of fuel subsidy, many states had little to show for the increased revenue, with poverty and hardship continuing to deepen.

Without mentioning Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago by name, Vatsa noted that Niger State has several flyovers under construction in Minna, none of which has been completed nearly three years after work began.

He alleged that such projects had become avenues for wasteful spending and borrowing rather than genuine infrastructure development.

Vatsa warned that while governors control enormous financial resources, public anger over inflation, rising living costs and governance failures is directed almost entirely at President Tinubu.

“Every economic hardship, every inflationary spike and every governance failure eventually finds its way to the doorstep of the President, while many state governments escape scrutiny despite controlling increasingly substantial financial resources,” he said.

Vatsa advised Tinubu to create a national development intervention similar to the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) under the late General Sani Abacha and the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) introduced by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

According to him, such a mechanism would ensure savings from fuel subsidy removal are invested directly in infrastructure and programmes that benefit ordinary Nigerians instead of being left entirely in the hands of state governments.

Vatsa also urged the President to enforce the Supreme Court judgment granting financial autonomy to local governments, alleging that many governors continue to withhold council allocations.

He further claimed local governments receive less than 10 per cent of their statutory allocations, a situation Vatsa argued has crippled grassroots development and weakened efforts to tackle insecurity across the country.