All 774 local government areas in Nigeria have opened accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria, completing the key prerequisite for receiving direct disbursements from the federation account and ending the long-standing practice of state governments acting as intermediaries in federal allocations to councils.

The chairman of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria in Niger State confirmed the development, saying he had informed the Nigerian Governors’ Forum at a recent interaction that the account opening process had been completed across all local governments nationwide. He described the next step, the commencement of actual direct disbursements, as a work in progress.

Opening CBN accounts was a compulsory prerequisite established as part of the Supreme Court-backed policy to ensure local government autonomy in the management of federal allocations, a reform that proponents said would reduce the diversion of funds by state governments and improve service delivery at the grassroots level.

In a separate development, Niger State Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago approved the deployment of drones across forests in the state to track and combat terrorists and bandits who had been using forested areas including Kainji, Kagara, and Shiroro as operational bases. The state commissioner for investment said the measure was designed to sanitize the forests and make the state more attractive to investors who had been deterred by the security environment. He said a gold mining and processing factory was also being planned in the state, with an Australian firm already secured to fund the project.