The Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal
has said there is no going back on
National Assembly’s resolve for
constitutional reform aimed at granting
autonomy to the local government
administration in the country.
The Speaker made this declaration on
Tuesday in Lafia, the Nasarawa State
capital, at the sixth quadrennial national
delegates’ conference of the National
Union of Local Government Employees
(NULGE).
He lamented that the absence of
autonomy for local governments had
continued to stretch service conditions
and stifled growth at the grassroots,
promising that when granted autonomy
local government funds would no longer
be appropriated by state governments.
“There shall be in Nigeria a full-fledged
third tier of government with complete
complement of structures including the
legislative council who shall henceforth
appropriate local government funds,” he
stated.
If granted autonomy, Tambuwal stressed
that only local governments with duly
elected officials would be receiving grants
from federation accounts, adding local
governments across the country would
have a harmonized tenure of office which
would be for a period of four years.
“We shall have uniform tenure for local
government elected officials of four years
and all local councils shall draw their
funds directly from the federation
accounts and not state Joint accounts,”
he told the conference.
The speaker allayed fears being
entertained that the case for autonomy is
only a ploy by the National Assembly to
take over the oversight functions of state
assemblies and a means of fighting a
group of individuals.
He said such insinuations were meant to
pollute the minds of state lawmakers and
other stakeholders, stressing that all the
National assembly was doing was “to
strengthen the institution of governance
at the local government level”.
In his submission, Governor Umaru Tanko
Al Makura said he was convinced that
attaining a virile society through
sustainable growth and development at
the grassroots was hinged on an
autonomous third tier of government in
Nigeria, especially “when there is a well-
articulated mechanism of checks and
balances by the state with the active
participation of NULGE”.
He said it was in this connection that his
administration recognised the role of local
governments in reaching out to the people
at the grassroots, saying “in this regard,
local government areas in the state are,
to a large extent, operating with
autonomy because they are given the free
hand to provide the desired leadership to
their areas in accordance with the needs
and aspirations of the people”.
The national president of NULGE,
Comrade Ibrahim Khaleel Abdulkadir,
accused state governments of relying on
sections 7 and 126 of the constitution to
justify their ulterior motive of frustrating
every move to strengthen local
government administration especially
through inadequate funding, over-
deductions, diversion of funds under
various guises among others.
He said NULGE was seeking autonomy of
local councils from state governments to
make them a truly independent and
practically effective tier of government
rather than the current “caricature of LG
system where all manners of political and
administrative experiments are carried out
which has retarded the development of
this nation”.
Leadership.
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