Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal has asserted that there was no going back on the resolve of the National Assembly for a constitutional reform that would grant autonomy to the local government administration in the country.
Speaking on Tuesday at the sixth quadrennial national delegates’ conference of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital, Tambuwal lamented that the absence of autonomy for local governments had continued to stretch service conditions and stifled growth at the grassroots. He was optimistic 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 said.
Tambuwal stressed that only local governments with duly elected officials would be receiving grants from federation accounts when local governments are granted autonomy, adding that they 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,” the Speaker told the conference.
He further allayed the 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, saying that such insinuations were meant to pollute the minds of state lawmakers and other stakeholders.
According to him, all the National Assembly was doing was “to strengthen the institution of governance at the local government level”.
Also speaking at the conference, Governor Umaru Tanko Al Makura noted that 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 added that it was in recognition of this that his administration identified the role of local governments in reaching out to the people at the grassroots. “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,” he said.
For the national president of NULGE, Comrade Ibrahim Khaleel Abdulkadir, state governments are 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 argued that NULGE was seeking autonomy of local councils from state governments so that they can become 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”.
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