The Board of Trustees of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria has sounded a fresh alarm over a plot by the faction loyal to former President Hon. Kolade David Alabi to convene an unauthorised National Executive Council meeting, warning that the scheming of a man who was barred from office but has refused to let go is once again threatening the stability of an association that represents 774 local governments across Nigeria.
In a statement signed by the BOT Chairman, Hon. Shaban Oyinoyi Shuaibu on Tuesday, the Board identified Hon. Bello Lawal as the latest figure being used to front the illegal gathering, describing him as one in a long and troubling line of surrogates installed by Alabi to occupy a seat he himself was constitutionally barred from holding and has never truly vacated in spirit.
“The planned meeting is illegal, unconstitutional, and completely unsanctioned by ALGON’s legitimate leadership,” Shuaibu said. “Any resolutions, appointments, or financial commitments that come out of it will carry no legal force whatsoever and we will challenge every single one of them through every available channel.”
“ALGON is not anybody’s house, personal office, or family inheritance,” he added. “It belongs to the 774 local governments of Nigeria and the millions of Nigerians those councils are meant to serve. We will not fold our arms and watch it be auctioned off again.”
The Board called on the Nigeria Police Force, the Department of State Services, the EFCC, and the ICPC to move without delay. “This planned gathering must not be allowed to serve as a platform for fresh financial commitments on behalf of an association whose accounts have already been severely damaged by years of fraudulent transactions carried out by people with no authority to act in its name,” Shuaibu warned. “The security agencies know what has been going on. We are calling on them to act now, not after the damage is done.”
Alabi was barred from the ALGON presidency after the National Executive Council established that he had no constitutional right to the office. He had presented himself to the association as a local government chairman. He was not. He was the chairman of Bariga Area Development Council, a body the Supreme Court of Nigeria has since confirmed does not belong among the country’s 774 constitutionally recognised local government areas. His election to the ALGON presidency was, from the beginning, built on a misrepresentation.
Yet being barred, the BOT notes, has never translated to departure in Alabi’s playbook. When the NEC moved against him, he refused to vacate. When the courts backed his removal, enforcement was frustrated at every turn. And when pressure finally made his direct occupation untenable, he simply changed strategy, installing Maifata Mauzu as his successor through a process the Board describes as a sham with no constitutional election and no genuine mandate from ALGON’s membership. The courts subsequently barred Mauzu from parading himself as ALGON President. So on October 8, 2024, the very day Mauzu’s local government tenure ran out and he could no longer even qualify for the role, a hurried gathering was convened and Bello Lawal emerged as the next name in the rotation.
“What we are seeing is a pattern that has become very familiar,” Shuaibu said. “The faces change but the hand behind them never does. Alabi was barred from the presidency as a man who had no business being there, and instead of accepting that verdict and moving on, he is clinging to this association through proxies and protégés as though it were his father’s property and his right to decide who inherits it. He has placed one figure after another, none of them produced by any constitutional process, to continue doing his bidding inside an institution he was never legitimately part of. It is unacceptable and it must stop.”
The BOT said the damage done to ALGON under the years of Alabi’s shadow control has been enormous. “Billions of naira have been lost through fake contractors who collected payments for projects never executed in any local government in Nigeria,” Shuaibu said. “Consent judgments were signed on the association’s behalf without any authority, saddling ALGON with liabilities running into hundreds of billions. The association’s Maitama office was mortgaged. An unauthorised bank account was opened and used to move billions belonging to this association without the knowledge of the legitimate leadership. This is what this faction has done to ALGON and this is exactly what they will do again if they are allowed to hold this illegal NEC meeting.”
“It is against this backdrop that we are raising this alarm,” he continued. “The threat of a fresh illegal NEC meeting is real and must be taken seriously. We are not crying wolf. We have seen this movie before and we know how it ends.”
On the path forward, the BOT confirmed the assumption of office of Hon. Iliyasu Zakari as ALGON’s new President, operating within the legitimate Interim Management Committee structure and in strict accordance with the association’s constitution.
“Hon. Iliyasu Zakari is our new President and he comes with a clear and firm mandate,” Shuaibu said. “He will not sit and watch as this faction continues to maraud the local governments as they have done over the years. The era of impunity in ALGON is over. Accountability will be put in place going forward. Every financial commitment made without constitutional authority will be investigated, every structure erected by those who had no right to be there will be dismantled, and every kobo that belongs to the 774 local governments of Nigeria will be accounted for.”
“We are also calling on the federal government to take firm note,” Shuaibu concluded. “ALGON’s offices, resources, and institutional identity belong to the association and to the 774 local governments it represents. No individual, no faction, and no self-appointed successor has the right to use them as a tool for personal enrichment or political control. That message is for Alabi, it is for Bello Lawal, and it is for anyone else who thinks this association is up for grabs.”
