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Local Government Corruption and Mismanagement in Rivers State: An Overview

Rivers State is made up of 23 Local Government Areas and Human Rights Watch has found that for the most part their performance has been a shocking and disastrous failure. This view is widely shared among residents of Rivers State, academics, civil society groups and even government officials. Although their budgets have grown dramatically in recent years, most have not made any serious effort to meet their most central obligations.

In local public discourse, Rivers’ local government administrations are frequently denounced in vitriolic terms. The head of one Port Harcourt-based civil society organization, for example, declared to Human Rights Watch that the state’s local government chairs “have no goals, no objectives, nothing they want to accomplish. Ninety-nine percent think of local government as nothing more than an opportunity to get paid to do nothing.”60 A prominent academic in Port Harcourt who has studied the subject described the conduct of local governments in the state as “sheer madness.”61

Similar opinions were voiced by many state government and foreign donor agency officials. One official with a foreign donor agency who had overseen a range of development projects in Rivers State told Human Rights Watch that local-level corruption in the state “is so ingrained that people do not even expect to receive any services from the people who are paid to deliver it.”62 Inemeh Friday, Rivers State’s Auditor General for Local Government, was more reserved but spoke of the need to “restore sanity” to the state’s local governments.63 

In fact, in many cases such sentiments do not exaggerate reality at all. Many local governments throughout Rivers State have become mired in patterns of corruption so pervasive and so debilitating that, with the exception of paying civil service salaries, they have virtually ceased to perform any of the duties assigned to them. Some local government chairmen do not even reside in their local governments, returning there only to pay salaries and give out the remainder of their monthly allocations as patronage. The problem has become so widespread that exceptions to the dismal norm are rare. An official of the Federal Economic and Financial Crimes Commission based in Port Harcourt told Human Rights Watch that, “To say that [local government] everywhere is a disaster is not a fair assessment, but it is not far from the truth.”64 

A Vast Increase in Financial Resources

Rivers State’s 23 LGCs have been allocated more than $636 million (N82.7 billion)65 through the Federation Account since 1999, and their average monthly allocations have increased more than fourfold over that same period (see table 1). Rivers’ LGCs received just under $115 million (N15 billion) in federal allocations during the first eight months of 2006, as against some $31.7 million (N4 billion) during the whole of the year 2000. These trends largely reflected the improved financial situation of LGCs throughout Nigeria due to increased federal government revenues.

TABLE 1: Average Total Monthly Allocation to Rivers State’s 23 LGCs, by period66

Local governments in Rivers generally employ well over 1,000 people, a figure that is often bloated by public pressure to create more jobs as well as by corruption.67 As much as one-third of the total “income” of LGCs in Rivers is withheld by the federal government, although the bulk of the money deducted does not actually impact on theoretical local government spending capacity because it goes towards meeting primary school teachers’ salaries (which the LGCs would be obligated to pay for as part of their responsibility for primary education).

Many local government officials have responded to critics—who complain that they have not put the resources at their disposal to any legitimate purpose—by claiming that after federal deductions and paying workers’ salaries, they have no money left for any other purpose. As this report documents, these claims are not technically accurate. However, even if they were, they demonstrate an odd perception of a disconnection between employment and role. Such officials would seem to be suggesting that government jobs do not exist to provide for the conduct of any real work. As one disaffected former Rivers State government official put it, “If I have N500 million and am using it to pay a large workforce which I admit is not providing any services, then what am I doing?”68  

In fact, because of the steady and dramatic rise in local government revenues since 1999, wage bills and deductions now consume a far smaller proportion of local government revenues than local government chairs would have their constituents believe. Of the five Rivers State local governments whose budgets were obtained by Human Rights Watch, not one allocated more than fifteen to twenty percent of their total allocations for the payment of salaries.69 The chairman of one local government and the deputy chair of another confirmed to Human Rights Watch that such allocations reflected the amount actually spent on wages in their own local governments.70 Combining this with the money “lost” to statutory deductions, most Rivers local governments still have, on average, fifty percent or more of their federal allocations left to deploy in other ways. During the first eight months of 2006 that percentage would amount to an average of N40 million ($310,000) per month in each Rivers State LGA.

As is true throughout Nigeria, Rivers’ local governments may still lack the human and financial capacities to meet objectively high standards with regard to either health care or education. Their fourfold increase in revenues, however, should at least have allowed them to make significant investments in efforts to progressively realize a higher standard of service in those sectors, which have teetered on the edge of near-collapse for many years. As one recent World Bank report put it:

The financial resources to LGAs may have been insufficient for them to meet their responsibilities in some years, but this is currently less of a constraint given the increased oil revenues…there seems [sic] to be significant problems with commitment, governance and accountability.71

At least one Rivers local government, Tai LGC in Ogoniland, has proven that local governments can do more with their increased allocations. The local government in Tai has produced and publicized a long list of projects it has been able to undertake with the increased resources at its disposal since the current chair came to office in 2004.72 According to local residents and civil society activists interviewed by Human Rights Watch around Tai and in Port Harcourt, the government has renovated schools, built new classroom blocks and constructed seven new health centers while providing medicines and new equipment for others. Many of those projects were undertaken at the request of various communities within the local government.73 Tai was also the only local government whose chair voluntarily provided Human Rights Watch with a copy of its budget.

Numerous problems remain in Tai and there are indications that its government remains immersed in some of the same patterns of corruption and mismanagement that are described in the pages that follow.74 But some proportion of the government’s increase in revenues has been translated into support for basic education and health that has benefited communities in Tai. Many other local governments have not performed nearly so well. Asked what he thought explained the difference, Tai’s chair, Jacobson Nbina, speculated that his counterparts in other local governments “do not have the interest of their people at heart. Maybe they want to become millionaires.”75

The Dynamics and Mechanics of Corruption and Mismanagement 

The following pages describe what Human Rights Watch found to be among the most significant patterns of local-level corruption and mismanagement prevailing in Rivers State. The case studies presented throughout this report, especially the discussions of Opobo/Nkoro and Khana local governments, provide more detailed accounts of how these common patterns have played out in Rivers LGAs. The ways in which many local officials steal public funds in Nigeria are varied and this report does not purport to provide an exhaustive catalogue of those techniques.

The Contract Industry   

Human Rights Watch carried out research in several Rivers local governments that have used a large proportion of their local governments’ newfound wealth to fund the construction of immense new headquarters for their operations and for other infrastructure projects. According to state and federal government officials and civil society groups, this lavish spending on new construction mirrors the practice in other local governments, and at the state level as well.76

Some examples of this phenomenon are as follows:

  • Obio/Akpor local government budgeted more than N353 million ($2.7 million) for the construction and furnishing of its enormous new local government secretariat along with a new shopping mall in 2005 and 2006.77 
  • Tai local government budgeted nearly N100 million ($770,000) in 2005 and 2006 for the construction of its own new secretariat, more than twice its total capital expenditures on health and education.78
  • Opobo/Nkoro local government set aside N140 million ($1.1 million) in 2005 to pay for one phase in the ongoing construction of a new secretariat and a new hotel near the site of that secretariat, more than 15 percent of the total budget.

Such allocations, which often dwarf the funds set aside for health care and education-related spending, may merely be examples of questionable government decisions, rather than corruption. But the lack of transparency and accountability of local government, combined with the urgent and unfulfilled needs of the state’s crippled health and education sectors, leads many to view such projects as indistinguishable from the problem of corruption. As one embittered resident of Port Harcourt put it, “All they do is build their headquarters, massive things, air-condition them, and buy vehicles to drive around in.”79 In fact, most state and local governments channel an enormous proportion of their resources into “projects” that require the awarding of large contracts to private enterprises to carry out construction or other work.80 Many such projects are so extravagant and without merit that they constitute a gross mismanagement of government revenues given the LGAs’ underlying context of badly decaying basic services.81  

The reasons for the prevalence of this problem would appear to have much to do with the easy opportunities for graft that large construction contracts present.82 Procedures established by state and federal law, as well as local government bylaws, that are meant to keep the contracting process both transparent and honest are routinely ignored, especially at the local level.83 Bids are inflated to allow for substantial kickbacks to both chairmen and contractors.84 Local government chairmen sometimes award contracts to friends or relatives and in some cases have gone so far as to award lucrative contracts to themselves.85 In other instances chairmen are pressured to illegally award contracts to their legislative council members. As one recent study of local government corruption in Nigeria put it, “If the chairman fails to satisfy them [the members of the legislative council], they find fault—genuine or otherwise—in him, and may even threaten him with impeachment.”86 The case studies presented later in this report provide some examples of this problem.

Many large contracts are never completed even though enormous sums of money are channeled into them. A forthcoming World Bank report notes that “anecdotal evidence suggests that more than half of all public investment projects [in Nigeria] are abandoned and never completed” and that this problem is “even more acute” at the state and local levels.87 One important reason for this is that contracts provide an opportunity for corrupt enrichment of the parties involved only so long as the work remains unfinished. One World Bank official in Abuja explained the problem this way:

One big problem is that they [state and local governments] are always trying to build new structures; it’s hard to convince them that it’s a good idea to buy textbooks and medicines…Governments are always starting new projects without completing their old ones. The incentives are to start as many projects as you can and keep them incomplete because they are a source of rent. Completing projects is against the basic economic incentives of civil servants.88

Construction projects are a particularly prevalent source of “rent” because government officials can inflate their cost and then embezzle the funds allocated to carry them out. In some cases, when construction work is near completion, projects are simply abandoned because their usefulness as sources of corrupt revenue has been outlived. Rivers State is littered with such projects, from abandoned schools to empty fish ponds to padlocked “Women Development Centers.” Some examples are discussed in detail in the case study of Khana local government below.89   

Problems with Local Government Budgets

While every local government in Nigeria is required to produce a budget each year, the plans set down in those budgets are frequently ignored. While extra-budgetary spending is illegal, the Rivers State government’s oversight of local governments is so weak that LGC chairs are left free to spend their monthly allocations more or less as they see fit, even if this involves substantial departures from any plans laid down on paper.90 An official with the World Bank in Abuja described most state and local government budgets as “jokes” and asserted that generally “there is no correlation between what’s in the budget and the way money is actually spent.”91

Even if local government chairs were to adhere to the guidelines spelled out by their budgets, ample opportunities for corruption remain. This is because those budgets generally channel a large proportion of government income into items that are so broad and so lacking in transparency that there is no practicable way of determining how the funds are actually spent. These include enormous allocations for items such as “special projects,” “entertainment and hospitality,” and “miscellaneous expenses.”92 

The result is that many local government chairs are able to use or misuse these funds at their complete discretion. As one Port Harcourt-based academic who has studied the issue put it, “The budget is a budget only in name—they create all manner of grey areas deliberately under which anything is possible.”93 Numerous examples of this phenomenon are discussed in more detail in the case studies presented further on in this report.

Security Votes

Perhaps the most notoriously murky form of discretionary spending is a budget line called the “security vote,” which consumes a substantial proportion of many local governments’ revenues in Rivers State. The security vote is a pool of funds that are meant to be used by the chair for the purpose of maintaining peace and security in the LGA.  Even in theory, it is often not at all clear what legitimate use such funds are intended to be put towards.  In practice, the chair has complete discretion in his use of these funds and does not have to account for or even report the manner in which he uses them. The security vote is one of the most opaque items in any local government budget, and it is also typically one of the largest single allocations:

  • According to a Commission of Inquiry convened in 2006, Khana local government’s chair has received an average of N60 million ($461,000) annually for his security vote.94
  • Tai local government’s chair had a security vote of N40 million ($300,000) in 2006.95
  • Opobo/Nkoro local government’s security vote was N36 million ($280,000) in 2006.96

In each of these cases, the security votes exceeded the total capital budgets for either health or education.97 

Human Rights Watch found that in some LGAs much of the total set aside for security votes was stolen outright or channeled into improper forms of patronage. For instance, one local government chairman dipped into his security vote to help pay for a “football academy” that he never actually built.98 Worse, it is often alleged that security vote money is actually used by many chairs to carry out political violence on their behalf. The head of the EFCC’s Port Harcourt office told Human Rights Watch that many local government chairs “will give half of the [security vote] money in the name of ‘empowerment’ to youth they use as thugs and the rest goes into their own bank accounts.”99

Making Returns 

The requirement that relatively junior government employees “make returns” to their superiors and colleagues is common at all levels of government in Nigeria.100 Many state- and local-level politicians throughout Nigeria are bound up in complex relationships that mirror such arrangements, with sponsors popularly known as political “godfathers.” These are powerful and wealthy individuals who help arrange for their protégées to be placed in office through their political connections, through financing their campaigns and through their ability to mobilize both violence and corruption to subvert the democratic process. In return, they claim the right to influence government policy and also lay claim to a substantial share of local government revenues for their own personal enrichment.101

Several LGC chairmen in Rivers are allegedly entangled in such relationships with “godfathers” who are themselves prominent state-level politicians.102 Other state-level officials have also developed ways of laying claim to revenues meant for local governments. Prominent members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, which is charged with oversight responsibilities over the local governments and their finances, are widely alleged to receive regular payments from several local government chairs.103 

Payments flow downwards from the chairman’s office as well; many local government chairmen throughout Nigeria allegedly bribe their local government councils to pass their budgets each year. 104 Some Rivers State chairmen have claimed that this practice amounts to extortion carried out by the members of their councils. 105 

Other Forms of Corruption

According to civil servants and health workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch in several Rivers local governments, allowances that local government employees are entitled to in addition to their salaries are routinely withheld while the funds that were set aside to pay them in the budget disappear.106 Some chairs have budgeted funds to carry out projects that were actually undertaken by other tiers of governments or multinational oil companies.107 Others are alleged to pad their local government payrolls with nonexistent workers.108 

Along with all of this, large amounts of money are lost to simple theft. As one Nigerian academic noted recently, there have been cases “of outgoing chairmen of councils…stealing refrigerators, generators, and some furniture from their official quarters. Some of them switched the engines and tyres of their official cars with those of their private cars before leaving office.”109 Beyond the chairperson and the legislative council, some local government civil servants, teachers and lower-level officials have also developed means of indulging in much smaller-scale corruption.110

Together these practices add up to such a severe drain on government finances and capacity that they have led many local governments throughout Rivers State to fail in their most important obligations towards their citizens.

Case Study A: Opobo/Nkoro Local Government

Opobo/Nkoro is one of four local governments that make up the Ogoni region of Rivers State.111 In April 2006, the members of Opobo/Nkoro’s legislative council voted unanimously to file allegations of gross misconduct against their chairman, Christopher Ogolo, with the state government. Those allegations ultimately led to Ogolo’s impeachment and removal from office by the Rivers State House of Assembly in August 2006.

The case against the chairman was well-documented. Human Rights Watch has obtained much of the evidence presented to the judicial panel of inquiry that investigated the allegations, and it provides a clear illustration of how the chairman set about looting the Opobo/Nkoro treasury.

While the malfeasance of some officials in Rivers is quite brazen, Chairman Ogolo was exceptional in doing little to cover up his misdeeds. One of the lawyers involved in the effort to secure his impeachment told Human Rights Watch that his job had been made easier by “some of the most stupid acts of corruption I have seen.”112 

The complainants were able to produce documents proving that the chairman had habitually withdrawn funds from the local government’s bank account and then deposited them into accounts held by his own private companies at the same branch of the same bank.113 Ogolo was also shown to have awarded numerous construction contracts without following any pretense of proper procedure. Between 2005 and the first few months of 2006 he illegally awarded at least N12 million ($92,000) worth of construction contracts to himself and gave another lucrative contract to his brother, all in clear violation of the law.114 

Ogolo also claimed to have expended large sums of money for items or services that were never delivered. This included billing the treasury for twice as much diesel fuel as he actually purchased for the running of electrical generators in the local government, at an average cost of more than N4 million ($30,000)  per month.115 The leader of Opobo/Nkoro’s legislative council told Human Rights Watch that the chairman had also spent some N50 million ($384,000) to build a fish pond for the sake of encouraging small-scale aquaculture but that “no one has seen a fish inside this pond.”116

Ogolo often disappeared from his government position for weeks at a time. During one especially prolonged period of absence, the local chapter of Nigeria’s local government employees union wrote a letter begging the leader of the Opobo/Nkoro’s legislative council to “use [his] good office to locate the whereabout [sic] of our Council Chairman so that the problems of workers can be attended to.”117

Questionable “Priorities”

Human Rights Watch was able to obtain a copy of the Opobo/Nkoro local government budget for 2005. The budget reveals the extent to which the local government’s most important responsibilities—including the provision of basic health care and education—have been neglected even on paper. It also betrays a pattern of government expenditure focused on using public funds for precisely the kind of questionable and opaque expenditures described earlier in this report.118

Opobo/Nkoro’s 2005 budget provided for total expenditures of just under N900 million (some $6.92 million) and the local government allocated just 2.4 percent of this total—N21,900,000 (roughly $170,000)—to education-related spending outside of the money deducted by federal authorities for teacher salaries.119 More than half of that amount was earmarked for the payment of bursaries given to provide financial support to university students from the local government, leaving just under N10 million ($77,000) available for expenditures that could be seen as related to the provision of primary education. The health sector’s budget is similarly barren. Only N3 million ($23,000) was allocated to equip, build and repair primary health care facilities in the local government.120     

Perhaps most telling is the contrast between those figures and the generous (if not necessarily unlawful) funding of budget items that the chair and the legislative council set aside for their own, largely discretionary, use. More than 30 percent of the entire local government budget was set aside for salaries and overhead expenses for the offices of the chairman and the legislative council.121 Included in this total were:

  • A travel budget for the chairman (N7 million or $53,800) that was more than twice as large as the capital budget for the health sector (N3 million or $23,000)122;
  • Salaries for 116 “Functional Committees, Protocol Officers” that exceeded the amount allocated to pay the local government’s 123 health-sector workers123;
  • An allocation for “Miscellaneous Expenses” to the office of the chairman that exceeded the combined education overhead and capital budgets124; and
  • A Security Vote to the Office of the Chairman roughly equivalent to the entire health sector budget.125

While both the health and education budgets had been cut slightly from 2004, more than 11 percent of government revenue in 2005 was allocated for the “take-off” of construction of a hotel at local government headquarters, by far the single largest expenditure in the entire budget.126 See table 2 below for some further comparison of these budgetary priorities.

Table 2: Budget Allocations, Opobo-Nkoro Local Government127

A Double Standard?

The Leader of Opobo/Nkoro’s legislative council told Human Rights Watch that for more than two years, the council was kept in the dark and had no idea that anything was awry. Asked by Human Rights Watch what he had thought was happening to the government’s money, he said, “We don’t know. He [Ogolo] claimed he was paying for power [electricity], but there was no power.”128

The problem with these assertions is that the legislative council gave its seal of approval to budgets that channeled a great proportion of government revenue into its own members’ hands as well as those of the chairman on exceedingly vague terms. Almost nothing was left aside, even on paper, to meet government’s health- and education-related responsibilities.

Many critics in Rivers State have alleged that the councilors in Opobo/Nkoro went after their chairman not because he was corrupt, but because he was not making adequate returns to them and to other influential actors in the local government. The same critics allege that his impeachment ultimately succeeded only because the chairman had also failed to “settle” key members of the state House of Assembly. As one Port Harcourt-based activist put it, “the chairman’s problem was that he had taken things to such an extreme that he had no friends left.”129

Since leaving office, Christopher Ogolo has not faced criminal charges or any other form of additional sanction. The head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s Port Harcourt office described the situation in Opobo as a “disaster,” and confirmed that “you could not see anything visible that the guy did.” He nonetheless said that the case had not been taken up by the EFCC or any other government agency for criminal prosecution, citing a lack of concrete evidence presented to the Commission.130




60 Human Rights Watch interview, Port Harcourt, August 26, 2006.

61 Human Rights Watch interview, University of Port Harcourt, August 16, 2006.

62 Human Rights Watch interview, August 2006.

63 Human Rights Watch interview with Inemeh Friday, auditor general for Local Government, Port Harcourt, August 14, 2006.

64 Human Rights Watch interview with Sani Mohammed, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Port Harcourt, August 29, 2006.

65 Monetary figures throughout this report are calculated from Naira to US dollars at an exchange rate of N130/$1.

66 This table is drawn from figures published by the Nigerian Ministry of Finance each month. Those figures are available online at http://www.fmf.gov.ng/detail.php?link=faac (accessed December 4, 2006).

67 Human Rights Watch interviews with state and local officials, Rivers State, August 2006; local government budgets on file with Human Rights Watch. Some local government chairmen have added fictitious civil servants to their payroll, and others have illegally “hired” political cronies or members of violent gangs. See Jones Oluwole Aluko, Corruption in he Local Government System in Nigeria (Ibadan: BookBuilders, 2006), pp 55-105. Also see below, Local Government Corruption and Mismanagement in Rivers State: An Overview; and The Roots of Local-Level Corruption in Rivers State.

68 Human Rights Watch interview, Port Harcourt, August 2006.

69 Human Rights Watch obtained budgets for Tai, Obio/Akpor, Etche, Khana and Opobo/Nkoro local governments.

70 Human Rights Watch interview with Lawrence C. Chuku, deputy chairman, Obio/Akpor Local Government Council, August 25, 2006; Human Rights Watch interview with Jacobson Nbina, executive chairman, Tai Local Government Council, Saakpenwa, August 30, 2006.

71 World Bank, “Health, Nutrition and Population Country Status Report,” p. 47, para. 12.

72 These are listed in a manifesto entitled, “An Epitome of Delivery of Democratic Dividends.”

73 For this participatory approach in particular, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), named Tai’s chair the best-performing local government chair in Ogoniland in 2006. Human Rights Watch interview with Leddum Mittee, Port Harcourt, August 15, 2006.

74 Tai local government allocated nearly 20 percent of its budget to the office of its chairman, much of it for purposes that are impossible to decipher. This included a N40 million security vote and N45 million for “Miscellaneous Expenses.”  Tai local government budget, 2006. One of the chairman’s central education-related initiatives was the distribution of 100,000 notebooks to students in the LGA’s primary schools, each one bearing a portrait of the chairman.

75 Human Rights Watch interview with Jacobson Nbina, executive chairman, Tai Local Government Council, Saakpenwa, Tai local government, August 30, 2006.

76 See below, The Roots of Local Government Corruption.

77 Obio/Akpor Local Government Council, 2006 Recurrent and Capital Estimates, Head 7001 and 7002. Also see below, Trading Blame in Obio/Akpor local government.

78 Tai Local Government Estimates for 2006, Heads 5001, 5002 and 7001.

79 Human Rights Watch interview, Port Harcourt, August 14, 2006.

80 Human Rights Watch interviews with World Bank official, Abuja, September 2006.

81 See below, Case Studies A, B and C; and Trading Blame in Obio/Akpor local government.

82Another, not unrelated, reason for such massive expenditures on construction projects is that they provide tangible evidence that local government has at least done something with the funds at its disposal.

83 The Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Act of 2000, for example, provides for criminal penalties for various offenses related to the improper awarding of contracts. See below, Opobo/Nkoro case study.

84 The head of the EFCC’s Port Harcourt office told Human Rights Watch that such practices are “where they [local government chairmen] really have the opportunity to enrich themselves” in Rivers State. Human Rights Watch interview with Sani Mohammed, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Port Harcourt, August 29, 2006.

85 See below, Opobo/Nkoro and Khana local government case studies.

86 Aluko, Corruption in the Local Government System, p. 97

87 Forthcoming World Bank Expenditure Review for Nigeria, on file with Human Rights Watch.

88 Human Rights Watch interview with World Bank official, September 2006.

89 See below, Khana local government case study.

90 See below, The Roots of Local Government Corruption. Section 77(1) of the Rivers State Local Government Law of 1999 requires that any departure from the spending plans set down in the budget estimates be specifically authorized by a resolution of the legislative council.

91 Human Rights Watch interview with World Bank official, September 2006.

92 See below, Khana and Etche local government case studies.

93 Human Rights Watch interview, Port Harcourt, August 16, 2006.

94 “Findings of the Judicial Panel of Investigation,” p.5.

95 Tai local government estimates, 2006.

96 See below, Opobo/Nkoro local government case study.

97 See below, Khana and Opobo/Nkoro local government case studies.

98 “Findings of the Judicial Panel of Investigation;” See below, Khana local government case study.

99 Human Rights Watch interview with Sani Mohammed, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Port Harcourt, August 29, 2006.

100 Most notoriously, the police who man “checkpoints” set up to extort money from passing motorists throughout Nigeria are often required to pass along a fixed amount in “returns” each day or week to their commanding officers. Human Rights Watch interview with member of Police Service Commission, December 2005.

101 The Governors of Oyo and Anambra states were both impeached by their state legislatures after publicly breaking with their erstwhile godfathers. For more on both of these cases, see below, The Federal Government Response.

102 The chairman of Etche local government, for instance, is widely understood to have come into office due in large measure to the political and financial sponsorship of  the Rivers State Commissioner for Sport, who also hails from Etche. Human Rights Watch interviews, Port Harcourt, August and September 2006.

103 Human Rights Watch interviews with former state government official and civil society activists, Port Harcourt, August and September 2006. For more on the failure of state government oversight, see below, The Roots of Local Government Corruption.

104 See below,The Roots of Local Government Corruption.

105 This was true in Khana and Opobo/Nkoro local governments, both of which are described in case studies later on in this report.

106 See below, Khana and Etche local government case studies.

107 See below, Khana local government case study.

108 Human Rights Watch interviews, Port Harcourt, August 2006.

109 Aluko, Cooruption in the Local Government System, p. 99

110 See Ibid., pp. 88-101.

111 The others are Khana, Gokana and Tai.

112 Human Rights Watch interview with Leddum Mittee, Port Harcourt, August 15, 2006.

113 Statement of Facts of Gross Misconduct, p. 6, para. 3.5(ii) and Exhibits G and G1 (documents on file with Human Rights Watch). The two companies in question were called ROC Engineering and Liquid World Nig. Ltd.

114 The actual total amount of the contracts Ogolo awarded to himself was N11,881,372 ($91,395). Opobo/Nkoro’s bylaws explicitly prohibited such practices. Opobo/Nkoro Local Government Council, “A Bye-Law to Establish and Regulate Opobo/Nkoro Local Government Tender Board,” sec. 7 (on file with Human Rights Watch). See also Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Act of 2000, Sec. 9.

115 Between April 2005 and January 2006, Ogolo was alleged to have “purchased” 66,000 liters of fuel while only 33,000 liters were delivered. Statement of Facts of Gross Misconduct, p. 5, para. 3.3(i). Those funds were collected and spent even during periods where the electrical generators in question were non-functional. Ibid., p. 5, para. 3.3(ii).

116 Human Rights Watch interview with Henry Uranta, leader, Opobo/Nkoro Legislative Council, Port Harcourt, August 26, 2006.

117 Statement of Facts of Gross Misconduct, Exhibit F. At the time, the local government was having trouble paying salaries because of financial difficulties arising out of Ogolo’s refusal to pay the government’s debts. Human Rights Watch interview with Henry Uranta, Leader, Opobo/Nkoro Legislative Council, Port Harcourt, August 26, 2006.

118 See above, Local Government Corruption: An Overview.

119 See above, A Note on Local Government Budgets.

120 Ibid., Heads 2007 and 5002.

121 Ibid., Heads 2001 and 2003.

122 The Chairman’s travel budget came to N7 million ($53,846). The health capital budget totaled N3 million ($23,076).

123 The total for the “Protocol Officers’” salaries came to N32,220,000 ($247,846) while the total wage bill for the health sector totaled N27,955,293.27 ($215,040).

124 The Chairman’s budget for Miscellaneous Expenses totaled N 25,500,000. The total amount spent on education, including bursaries for university students, was N 21,900,000.

125 The Security Vote came to N36,000,000, while the total amount of health-related spending totaled N 37,655,293. For a further discussion of security votes, see above, The Dynamics and Mechanics of Local Government Corruption.

126 Opobo/Nkoro Year 2005 Appropriations Bill, Head 5004. The budget predicted another N50 million of spending for this project in 2006.

127 The figures in this table are drawn from Opobo/Nkoro’s 2005 budget, which is on file with Human Rights Watch.

128 Human Rights Watch interview with Henry Uranta, Leader, Opobo/Nkoro Legislative Council, Port Harcourt, August 26, 2006.

129 Human Rights Watch interview, Port Harcourt, August 12, 2006.

130 Human Rights Watch interview with Sani Mohammed, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Port Harcourt, August 29, 2006.