AKOR SYLVESTER – Abuja
The Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has warned the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) against thwarting the recent Supreme Court judgment that granted total financial autonomy to local government administration in the country.
NULGE alleged that the state governors were plotting to use any other means to make the financial autonomy ineffective, stating that the union would resist any move to sabotage or disobey the court judgment.
The National President of NULGE, Ambani Akerman Olatunji who spoke at the colloquium session of the 2nd National NULGE Week in Abuja, said; “We want to sound a note of warning to members of Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF)who have started surreptitious and clandestine moves to thwart that judgment because of their insatiable appetite to continue to steal, misapply, misappropriate government funds.”
He noted that; “The time to put a stop to it is now. A financially strong people driven, people-centered, local government is a democratic right of Nigerian people. We must adopt a bottom up approach to governance.
“Unless we do this, national development and growth will continue to elude Nigeria. For a country so blessed with vast natural resources, vast human resources, and rich soil to continue to be the poverty headquarters of the world, is not acceptable.”
The colloquium themed “Making Local Government Administration Work for Nigeria People”, was well attended by thousands of NULGE members, government and trade union dignitaries.
It discussed topics on transparency and accountability in financially autonomous local government in Nigeria, the impacts of local government autonomy on grassroots and local funding.
He further said; “Just last year we conceptualized the idea of celebrating the role and contribution of local government administration to public governance and national development. It has come to stay, and within those two years, God answered our prayer. Our quest to free local government administration from the hands of the state political actors has now become a thing of the past.
“Let us appreciate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who took the bull by the horn and sought interpretation and affirmation of the role and existence of an autonomous local government system in Nigeria, which we have attempted severally for 21 years. We are unable to achieve it. We were looking at the parliamentary option, but the President, out of his ingenuity, brought another dimension to it. And that landmark judgment by the Supreme Court has put the whole matter to rest.”
He said; “We must rise up to change the narrative, and we can only do that if we allow the local government to deliver dividends of democracy.
“Local government is the most strategic, the most relevant and the closest to Nigerian people. Development cannot be achieved without having a vibrant local government system.
“Local government is the vehicle through which growth and development can reach Nigerian people easily.
“When you talk about the issue of poverty, infrastructure, deficit, insecurity, and bad governance, it can be linked to the absence of that sub-national government that has become missing in action. No wonder most of the Nigerian space is now ungoverned. They are occupied by bandits, terrorists, and nobody can go home. You can’t go to your village without visiting a mountain to go and pray.
“So the time to reset Nigeria is now. The time to rework Nigeria for the Nigerian people is now. The time to make local government work for the Nigerian masses is now. local government bureaucrats are ready. We are well trained, and we believe with fiscal autonomy for local government, Nigeria will witness tremendous growth and progress.
“Let us stand up for our local government. Let us defend the downtrodden masses. Let us scale up infrastructure development at the local government level. Let us arrest the spate of insecurity in Nigerian rural communities and rural roads. Let us reduce poverty by creating vocational skill acquisition and empowerment for Nigeria. Once we are able to do that, Nigeria will be on the path to greatness. The time to rework Nigeria is now. The time to rework local government is now. Once you fix local government, you have fixed Nigeria.”
