… State Interference, LG Autonomy Violation and Wike-Fubara Rainbow Coalition
By Nemi Tamuno
The Threat In Question
Barely three months to the February 2027 general elections, tension has enveloped the 23 Local Government Areas of Rivers State over an alleged plot to sack thousands of council workers.
The Rivers State Local Government Service Commission, headed by Chief Clifford N. Okpara, claims it only carried out a biometric verification exercise that started in late 2025 to fish out ghost workers and curb wage bill inflation from illegal recruitments. The Commission, through its spokesman Favour Azubuike, denied sacking 21,000 workers and said no legitimate worker has been disengaged.
But on the streets, workers whose salaries stopped after the exercise call it what it is: sack by another name. The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, led in Rivers by Comrade Alex Agwanwo, and the National Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, have asked for revalidation, but the demand that low-level council staff produce five years bank statements has deepened suspicion.
More disturbing is the growing assumption in political circles that the exercise is not just about ghost workers. It is about money. The assumption, widely discussed in Port Harcourt political caucuses, is that sacking thousands of workers three months to election is a deliberate ploy by the architects of the Rainbow Coalition to mop up savings from unpaid salaries and divert local government funds to finance the 2027 re-election campaign of President Bola Tinubu.
Names being mentioned in this assumption include the FCT Minister and Rivers APC Campaign Coordinator, Chief Nyesom Wike, who coordinates the PBT/APC Rainbow Coalition, Governor Siminalayi Fubara who is said to host strategic meetings for the coalition, and the leadership of the Local Government Service Commission and some LGA Chairmen under ALGON who are expected to remit savings from the sacked workers’ salaries.
Why Five Years Bank Statement When Vouchers Exist?
This is the most illogical part of the exercise. Why demand five years bank statements from a cleaner in Gokana or a security man in Abua-Odual when local government payment vouchers exist?
Every legitimate council worker has a file in the establishment office, an employment letter, annual staff verification records, and monthly salary payment vouchers signed by the Treasurer and Head of Local Government Administration, HLGA. The banks that pay them are the councils’ own bankers. The Office of the Auditor-General for Local Governments and the Accountant-General have copies of these vouchers.
If government wants to be transparent, let it publish the audited accounts of all 23 LGAs from 2015 to date. Let it tell Rivers people who inflated council staff strength from 1,000 to 1,600 in Emohua and other LGAs, who signed the vouchers, and how much was lost. You do not punish the messenger for the crime of the master. Asking a Level 04 worker to bring five years bank statement is not audit; it is witch-hunt and intimidation of the poor to cover the fraud of the powerful.
And if the real intention, as assumed, is to save money for the Wike-led campaign council, then the five-year bank statement becomes a convenient technical trap to disqualify genuine workers and declare their salaries as savings for the Tinubu re-election war chest.
Local Government Autonomy Must Be Enforced
This entire episode is a direct assault on Local Government Autonomy and a vitiation of the Supreme Court judgement of 11th July 2024.
In that landmark judgement, the Supreme Court declared that allocations from the Federation Account must be paid directly to the 774 local governments, not through the State Joint Local Government Account. It declared caretaker committees unconstitutional and affirmed local governments as the third tier of government. Two years after, with over N10.48 trillion allocated to councils between July 2024 and June 2026, implementation remains a mirage as most states still control council funds.
In Rivers State, if councils were truly autonomous as the Supreme Court ordered, the question of whether to sack or not sack workers would not be decided by a State Commission sitting in Port Harcourt under the influence of Wike and Fubara’s political family. Each democratically elected council has the constitutional power to determine its manpower needs.
What we are seeing is state interference vitiating the Supreme Court position. A state body cannot hire and fire at will for 23 autonomous councils while claiming to implement autonomy. That is unconstitutional and politically deceitful.
It becomes more deceitful if the hiring and firing is driven by the need to create a pool of funds for the Rainbow Coalition campaign council led by Wike, with Fubara as a key member, to prosecute the 2027 presidential election. Local government funds are meant for primary health care, primary schools and rural roads, not for presidential campaign logistics for Tinubu.
The Solution Is Town Hall Meetings, Not Secretariat Sack List
Every council should be mandated to embark on town hall meetings to determine staffing needs. This is what grassroots good governance and accountability demands.
Let Obio/Akpor tell its people how many health workers it needs for its PHCs. Let Opobo/Nkoro tell its fishermen how many sanitation workers it can pay from its FAAC share. Let the people, traditional rulers, CDC, and council legislators interrogate the payroll and decide who is a ghost and who is real. That is autonomy. That is democracy. Not a list compiled in Port Harcourt by Okpara’s Commission and Wike’s political lieutenants three months to elections.
There is currently no accountability at the grassroots. No council publishes its monthly allocation, IGR, or workforce. No council holds quarterly town hall. That is why ghost workers thrive and real workers suffer. Political incompetency that lacks expertise governance to drive development cannot be cured by biometric machines; it is cured by transparency.
If councils held town halls, the people would see through any plot by Wike, Fubara and the ALGON chairmen to use their wage bill as campaign funds. They would ask: Why sack workers now? Where will the saved money go? Which account?
Political Implications For 2027 – Campaign Funds Assumption
For a government that could not employ its citizens and could not create a conducive environment for private job creation, threatening to sack council workers three months to polls is politically suicidal.
Rivers is oil-rich but job-poor. Companies are groaning under multiple taxation and insecurity. Youth unemployment is high. Instead of announcing industrial clusters, SME credit and ease of doing business reforms, government is being perceived as destroying the few jobs that exist.
The political implications are clear. First, it hands the opposition, including the ADC’s Rotimi Amaechi and Atiku Abubakar’s camp, a potent campaign weapon. They are already framing the exercise as “Wike and Fubara sacking workers to fund Tinubu’s re-election.” Whether true or false, the assumption is sticking because neither Wike, nor Fubara, nor Chief Okpara has published where the supposed savings from ghost workers will go.
Second, LGA workers are grassroots mobilizers – each worker controls a family, a compound, a polling unit. Alienating them with suspicion that their salaries are being converted to campaign funds by the Rainbow Coalition is electoral suicide.
Third, it exposes the fact that the lingering political war between Fubara and Wike has now transformed into a financial alliance for 2027, abandoning governance while fighting over who controls the grassroots war chest.
Fourth, and most damaging, it validates the fear that state capture of local government funds continues despite the Supreme Court ruling. If workers are sacked and their salaries saved in a state-controlled joint account managed by allies of Wike and Fubara, then the autonomy judgement has been turned into a fundraising machine for 2027.
If the State truly wants reform and wants to disprove the campaign funds assumption linked to Wike, Fubara and the Commission, it should enforce full local government autonomy, direct FAAC to councils as ordered by the Supreme Court, compel each council to hold town hall verification with its people, use council vouchers – not workers’ private bank statements – to fish out ghosts, and publish monthly how much is saved and where it is kept.
Anything short of that is not reform; it is political incompetency using civil servants as pawns and their salaries as war chest for Tinubu’s 2027 election under the Wike-Fubara Rainbow Coalition.
