Independent
By Victoria Ojugbana
Itiatko Ikpokpo is the former chairman of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), erstwhile chairman of Isoko-South Local Government Area (LGA) of Delta State and a House of Representatives hopeful in 2023. In this interview with VICTORIA OJUGBANA, he relives his experience in office, talks about why politicians should not be desperate about occupying public offices, among other issues. Excerpts:
What was it like being the chairman of ALGON in Delta State?
In 2014, I became the chairman in Isoko-South. Usually, we pick a leader among the 25 of the chairmen of the LGAs, I was selected and I became ALGON chairman. There are common issues that affect people. So, your responsibility majorly is to aggregate the challenges, views and opinions and sell them to the appropriate authorities. In this case, the same local government, state government and the federal government as the case may be. It was an easy one and a tough one too. There were times when there were corresponding disagreements in approach methodology. Interest sometimes comes into play and how you manage them is also very important. In 2018, I was also reelected chairman of the LGA and was also reelected, ALGON Chairman. In fact, I became deputy president at the national level because I also doubled as the chief of staff to the current president of ALGON. At the end of my tenure I was asked to help them restructure.
You must have been outstanding to be selected. What made the difference?
First, I will say that we had a steady hand. We were deeply challenged by funding. I will give you a rough estimate of what it takes to run a local government. If you got N200 million, which was the average amount, teachers’ salaries as at 2014 when I became chairman was N130 million, workers’ salaries in the council was about N60 million, then you are left with N10 million. You have not paid traditional rulers, you have not paid five percent of the pension, you have not paid one percent to the local government service commission. I ran a deficit for six years. It will surprise you but the records are there. So, what we tried to do was to quickly see how we could sustain and build our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from a zero deficit and we were doing our monthly IGR from between N600,000 to N1million. That guaranteed that there were certain basic things, which we were able to do in running the local government, like the provision of constant light and water in almost all the communities, interventions on roads, renovations in the council, among others.
But the primary school teachers’ salaries were paid regularly. Can you react to that?
Yes, at some point it was but at a time, it was difficult because there was recession and we couldn’t pay in 2015. In fact, we owed so much backlog and even when the Paris Club came, the funds that we were originally allocated for us in Delta was still not enough. The current governor had to give us N5 billion of the state’s share of the funds to be able to clear off the debt. That was when we settled and from then till now, I don’t think that we have ever owed salaries.
While in the local government, did you embark on any empowerment programme?
Yes, we were not able to do a lot because if you go back to my story line, we were hampered by funds and you really can’t do much when you don’t have funds. But we did a lot in terms of agriculture, growing new agriculture, in the area of tomato farming. We trained over 30 people cut across the wards in the local government on fish farming, sent about 40 people in the local government on different trainings.
But most importantly, we also tapped into the state government’s empowerment programme, YAGEB, GPIYA, we tapped into that. Usually, they requested the local government to send names of people who would participate and that was also an avenue for us to participate, which we did.
What was your relationship with the constituents during your tenure?
Isoko-South LGA has 11 wards and 20 district wards. I think as chairman, one of the easiest ways to reach the people is through community leadership. From time to time, we had constant and consistent meetings with community leaders, those we call presidents-general of clans. Every clan had a president general as it were. We had constant meetings because when you are dealing with security, they are the first port of call, so there was a need to keep in touch with them. Also same with traditional rulers because it is important that we ensured that we were in constant touch with them daily, maybe a minimum of three times in a week. It is important that twice a month, we have meetings on security. The way we kept in touch with our community was to visit them from time to time, open your doors to know if there were issues, and try to synergize with the counselors and supervisors and generally the council staff. Once your doors are open, if you are a council chairman, it is very easy to relate with your people.
Why do you want to represent your constituents at the green chamber of the National Assembly?
I think I am consulting and talking to a lot of
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