We will shut down 774 LGs in the country if… —NULGE National President

Comrade Akeem Olatunji recently took over as the seventh National President of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), following the inauguration of the Union’s new executive in Abuja. In this interview, he speaks on his plans for the union, the critical challenges facing the local government system in Nigeria and warns that Labour will shut down the 774 local governments in the country if the House of Representatives goes ahead with the plan to delist local government as the third tier of government. SOJI-EZE FAGBEMI, presents the details.

 

YOUR becoming national president of NULGE, how will you describe it?

We thank God almighty because we see it as divine not accidental and having been elected as the seventh national president of NULGE, you know that even in the spiritual realm, seven stands for perfection. We expect God to lead us aright to enegage in ensuring total freedom for local government system in Nigeria which is the bedrock of Nigerian development.

 

You talked about what you’re bringing in to NULGE during your inauguration. What exactly are we going to see different from what we’ve been seeing?

We are going to set up a standard for a performing and reliable unionism. We are going to engage all the stakeholders on discussions on why local government autonomy is the in-thing. Without local government autonomy the problem of insecurity would continue, the problem of restiveness would continue, the problem of loss of hope in the country called Nigeria would continue, because when you practise an all exclusive government people are bound to react. For us, we are going to mobilise Nigerians, the masses to demand, as a matter of right for the approval of local government autonomy, so that we will make local government more functional, more people-driven and more people-centered; so that people would be able to determine the kind of leaders they want. We will ensure and sensitise Nigerians against the system of coronation of leadership in local government level whereby the governors will wake up one day and sack elected leaders in the local government and put in their cronies and use local government as a conduit pipe whereby money meant for the development of the grassroots is being siphoned by these political elites.

For us, we are going to also broaden the economic base of the union. Enough of waiting for check-off dues, we should not be going cap in hands to political elites if you want to stand as a unionist you must have financial independence. We are going to invest, we’re going to bring into play the fleet of transport service that will have NULGE Mass Transit. We are also going to go into hospitality within the next two years, we wll be having NULGE Guest House. And also we are going to make sure  we go into cooperative to ensure that we improve the financial stamina of our members. And we are going to reform the union to make sure the union attends to  modern day expectations of members. We are also going to give a voice to the youth members of the union, we are going to sensitise them toward self determination. We are going to make sure that women are given place of pride in unionism. We are going to challenge the women in NULGE to come up and take up leadership very soon and we are going to fight against work place violence against women like rape, assault, deprivation and discrimination against women.

 

Somebody listening to you now will say these are good dreams but these look as the same dreams your predecessors came in with. I don’t know at what percentage they were able to achieve them. What do you have on ground to give you this assurance about all these things you said you are going to do, and you have four years?

My predecessor had a different dream. The dream is different. You know it was during my predecessor’s tenure we introduced the involvement of women in NULGE, but we are going to make sure we democratise that to ensure that women are allowed to determine their representatives across the 774 local governments. There is going to be the first women conference, gender conference for local government workers and we are going to bring in youth convention whereby youth will be able to talk. It is time for youth to speak out, the “soro soke” will have to come into play in NULGE. So for us, we are experienced, we have the benefits of experienced leaders. I am a performing Chairman of NLC in Ogun State, the records are there. So, we know with God on our side, with the support of the media, so that you will be able to keep us on our toes, we will achieve all these.

 

Why has it become very difficult to achieve local government autonomy, because every time it is only the cry of NULGE we hear?

Truly, the clamour for local government autonomy should not be the responsibility of NULGE, it should be from the masses themselves. But we realised that the Nigeria public gradually has become apathetic to some sensitive issues, may be because of disappointment in governance and because of that, Nigerian masses who are expected to troop out and even clamour for local government autonomy have been pauperised, they have been disenchanted with government, with political leaders promises that are not kept. So for us, we are trying to ginger them again to demand for that. You asked me why is it difficult? It is simple. Some people, the political elites gang-up together, they collaborate and pauperised local government. That is why the important thing about local government now is political freedom to determine their leaders and also the financial autonomy. Political elites at the state level see local government money as leaked funds, and they dip their hands into it and nobody is trying to control them. We thanked the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for bringing the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) but it is not yet uhuru. Once we are able to separate funding of local government and we fund local government directly, you will see that even the governor will not be interested and there is fear for the governors. If we have local government that is performing, the role of state may not even be significant again. It is unfortunate in Nigeria. You know that local government gave birth to state government. It is only Federal and local government the native authority that we started with. Somehow along the line, our son decided to destroy his parent, that is what we are witnessing. We know that with the help of the media, with the help of God, and with the perseverance of NULGE, we will achieve it. For example, now that people are clamouring for devolution of power, where do you devolve power to? Devolution of power should be to local government, not to state, because the most powerful governors in the world are in Nigeria. So, for us, if we want to be sincere about devolving power, we must devolve power to local government service, to the local government people where people really domicile. We don’t even need state police, what we need is local government police who understand the terrain of the area, who understand the language, the tradition of the area, who can also keep the security. What we need to do is to ensure we organise and monitor the already existing security structures like the vigilantee, the OPC, the Hisbah, and all of them. When we strengthen and empower them, all these security problem will fizzle out. In the past, there used to be security meeting in the local government every Monday, what happened to that? So, that is the problem.

 

Why should Nigerians believe you because you said because of political leaders, people are disenchanted. Don’t you think that even at this point in time, even the masses are also disenchanted towards the Labour leaders. Why should a worker listen to you and trust you?

The workers not only trust and love me, they supported me. They gave me their confidence and they believe in my ability. They are not disenchanted with me, that is why I am their new leaders. I won in a landslide manner. I have been sacked for two and half years because of the struggle. You can see the number of people that came from Ogun State for my inauguration. That is leadership, that is confidence. For us in Nigeria, what we need is that Nigerians should also wake up, it is not about Labour. So many of these engagements Labour are involved in, they are not the role of Labour. Labour has been created to continue to engage government on workers welfare, all other things are ancillary. What happens to our civil society groups, what happens to the members of the media, including you. So, all of us are guilty as charged.

 

On the bill presently in the House of Representatives to delist local government as the third tiers of government, what is your position?

It is not a problem, it is a challenge. For us, we have seen it as another gang up by the political elites to continuously emasculate Nigerian people and ensure that Nigerian masses continue to suffer poverty, continue to languish in under development and insecurity across the board. You know we are moving towards actualising the local government autonomy because there is an amendment to the constitution. Instead of the National Assembly to focus on that, they brought up different issue entirely. In this century, one wonders why somebody  who supposed to  be the representative of the people, who emerged from local government system will wake up and say that he sponsored a bill that is anti-people, unpopular bill, anti-Nigeria bill, anti-youth bill, anti-market woman bill and the person that brings the anti-vision leader bill must be call to order. Haven said that, we are also calling on the Nigerian masses especially the rural people, the over 70 per cent population of Nigerians who reside in local government to rise up;  because we know that once there is no local government autonomy or a delisting of the local government as a tier of government, then you have condem majority of the Nigeria people to poverty and continuously become enslaved in their own country. That will bring in anarchy, amplify insecurity and that will continuously hype poverty level and joblessness that has been drawing the attention of the youths which led to a national protest recently.

For us in local government as operators of local government in Nigeria, we see that bill as unnecessary, diversionary and it is aimed at provoking the Nigerian masses.

 

What are you going to do to stop this move?

We have started already. we have let known our opposition to that bill. We are going to engage the National Assembly especially the House of Representatives who embarked on the journey to kill local government system. We have directed that our opposition to the bill should be communicated to the Speaker, House of Representatives immediately and we are also requesting that they invite NULGE leadership to a meeting at the National Assembly within the next two weeks and we have also directed our members across the country to commence the engagement of state House of Assembly and their representatives from various communities. They should also commence sensitization of Nigerian people to engage these honourable members so that they will vote against this killer bill sponsored by a PDP representative from Rivers State. We also know that it is disheartening that somebody from Rivers State will be doing that because the governor of Rivers State is a product of local government system. Gov. Wike emerged as a leader from local government.  He was a chairman of a local government. We expect a better understanding of local government and improvement on what has been in operation in the past from anybody who claim to be representing  Rivers people. We also know that this is a serious challenge to local government, and we are saying this, very soon if we engage them and the leadership is not doing what is needful, we might direct our members to shut down the country in all the 774 local government but we hope that they will not allow it to degenerate to that level  because once you delist local government as a tier of government, it shows you have killed local government. Even now that local government remains the tiers of  government, you know the governors are pauperising local government and there are alot of swindling of local government funds. That’s why they are not allowing democratic elected leadership at the local government level. What they are doing is to appoint their cronies as caretaker in local government so that they will continuously impoverished local government. If local government was made to  work properly, we will get it right in Nigeria. We’ve seen the issue of insecurity, but if local government system is working properly, we will create employment, develop along a progressive line, we will have meaningful development and growth across our communities. There was a time when local government was completely autonomous, whereby they were able to provide boreholes in various communities, provide maternity centres, even building roads, good schools and built abattoir for people in the area. Most of Nigerians who reside in rural areas, who formed bulk of our populations have not been allowed to enjoy dividends of democracy. Once we get it right and we have a functional local government system, they will enjoy, benefit and the will also be patriotic to the Nigerian project.

 

How will you advise the members of the House of Representatives over this issue?

Now that we are having so many challenges in Nigeria, we will expect the House of Representatives to address the issue of insecurity across the country; Kidnapping, banditry and what have you. We will expect them to pass bills to create job and employment for Nigerian people. We will expect them to fix the issue of power supply. If they are on the side of the people, you’ll expect them to pass bill that will fix our refineries instead of looking for how to kill local government system, or ensuring that rural people are abandoned and neglected.

 

In clear term strike is imminent if they go ahead?

That will be ultimate. There will be a mass protest first before we will likely shutdown all local governments across the country.

 

Did you write the leadership of the National Assembly?

We have directed that today.

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