As a way to reduce the none-payment of salaries to barest minimum in Kogi state, the newly elected chairman of the committee handling the amendment of the 1999 constitution in the 36 States Houses of Assembly in the country, Rt. Hon. John Gaul Lebo has suggested the merging of Kogi State with another to form one viable government.
By so doing, the lawmaker said will make the payment of salaries and meeting other state demands will be feasible.
Speaking to DAILY POST in an interview in Calabar, Hon Lebo who, doubles as Speaker of the Cross River State House of Assembly said, “If the Kogi state government for every reason feels that they can’t pay salaries to her workers, they need to form a merger with another state to continue to exist, those frame work should be available.
Consequently, on the none viability of the Kogi state, the Speaker lamented, “The Kogi State House of Assembly doesn’t have the power to make laws for solid mineral development, enough of which they have in Kogi, if they did, the governor can bring in investors, raise some funds and be able to pay salaries.
“If Kogi state discovered that it has some local government areas that they can’t fund it, the House of Assembly should have the capacity to reduce the local government councils to what they can fund. That’s what I think adding beyond blaming the governor in power, the different problems that the state are facing is a clear evident that we need to re-design the structure of Nigeria to take care of these problems.
“If a state is not paying salaries and it is created by the federal government and the state is not viable, we need to do something about it from the federal point of view, he stated. Interestingly, on Maina gate, he said, “I think the corruption fight of this administration has been call to question and it need to be address. We need federal government to answer some of the question that the people raised particularly questions that questioned the credibility of this government on particular issues,
Hon Lebo, who is also the elected Chairman of People’s Democratic Party Speaker’s forum stressed on the need for creation of more states.
“Creation of states, there must be reason for creation of state and there must be justification for it that they can fund for themselves, I believe that there are still some geo-political zones where you need some particular states that can fund for themselves.
“Like in the South East, I believe that we still need to have some states, Cross River need to have Ogoja state, I believe they have the capacity to fund for themselves. They are other states that were created for political reasons; let’s create states because of the economic reasons available and those states that have the capacity to fund for themselves” the lawmaker pointed out.
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