LGs can survive without relying on allocation — Benue commissioner
May 14, 2026 2:02 pm
File photo: Benue State Commissioner for Finance and Economic Planning, Michael Oglegba.
By John Charles
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Benue State Commissioner for Finance and Economic Planning, Michael Oglegba, has said local government councils can survive without depending entirely on federal allocations if they fully harness their internally generated revenue sources.
Oglegba stated this during an interview with journalists in Makurdi on Thursday.
According to him, the Constitution provides enough opportunities for local governments to generate revenue internally, but many councils have failed to explore the available sources.
The commissioner, who maintained that local government areas in the state are autonomous, urged council authorities to look inward instead of depending solely on monthly allocations.
He said, “The drafter of our constitution gave opportunity to local government to collect internally generated revenue. For instance, the tenement rate, which people pay for residing in a place.
“This is much more than grant rent, and it is supposed to generate a lot of money; unfortunately, there is no local government that has successfully collected the money. Most of them are not interested but wait for money to come.
“They (LGAs) have a long list of rates they ought to collect. IGR is the way out.”
Oglegba, however, blamed poor management and lack of proper governance structures for the inability of local governments to maximise their revenue potential.
He advised officials managing local governments to embrace capacity building and strengthen governance systems.
“There is a lot of IGR trapped in local government areas, another area is the mineral resources that are abound in some councils and there is nothing to stop them from benefiting directly from those resources,” Oglegba said.
Speaking on the state’s internally generated revenue, the commissioner said the Benue State Government had significantly improved revenue generation through various reforms and strategies.
“When we came on board, the IGR in the state hovers between N700m and N800 million monthly but we grew it to N1.5 billion monthly and then N2 billion monthly as at last year but today, we have exceeded N3 billion per month,” the commissioner said.
The issue of local government financial autonomy has remained a major national discourse following the push for greater fiscal independence for councils across the country, with many stakeholders advocating improved revenue generation and accountability at the grassroots level.
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