Labour union, under the aegis of National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has taken its agitation and protest in support of local government autonomy to Lagos and called on all Nigerians to support the initiative aimed at achieving local government independence from state governments.
Spearheading the rally in Lagos on Tuesday, the National President of NULGE, Comrade Ibrahim Khaleel, said his leadership is driving this nationwide campaign on the basis of the fact that over the years in the current democratic dispensation, our ruling elites at the various level of governance had bastardised the noble development ideas behind making the local government system the third tier of governance in our country.
According to him, “being the nucleus upon which the entire national political edifice of our dear country rests, we as workers in the local government system will be abdicating in our responsibilities if we’re not in the frontline of the struggle to extricate our nation from the exploitation and vice grip of our political elite.”
“We need not restate the fact that as employees in the local government system, we remain the most dependable voice from which Nigerians will measure the true situation of governance at the local government level. The burden of creating awareness therefore lies on our shoulders to serve as the vanguard of the advocacy for local government autonomy.”
Comrade Khaleel stated that the core points of their struggle is to secure “political, financial and administrative autonomy of Local Government Areas (LGAs), abolition of State/LGA joint account, payment of 10 per cent internally generated revenue by State governments to LGAs and stopping the deduction from LGAs’ federal revenue allocation by State governments.
“Other are proposal for payment of teachers’ salaries to be on first line charge of FAAC, abolition of SIEC and reverting the conduct of local government elections to INEC, implement the ruling of Supreme Court judgment against appointment of caretaker committees for LGs and reckless dissolution of elected local government councils.”
He posited that daily experience as workers at the local government level shows that the most prevalent situation in local government administration is the perpetual encroachment of the financial and administrative powers of local councils by the state governments.
“This manifests in a number of ways such as the confiscation of federally allocated revenues to local governments by states, compelling them to shoulder some expenditure responsibilities or mandatory deductions for so-called joint projects by states, lack of capacity to initiate development projects, among other challenges.”
“As the tier of government which connects majority of the people to the other tiers of government, it is important that local government is empowered with the autonomy to deliver on its mandate of taking development to the grassroots,” he said.
Comrade Khaleel suggested a review of the 1999 Constitution that will ensure strict compliance of Section 7of the Constitution as amended.