Local Government Autonomy: Governors Finally React to Supreme Court Verdict
The Nigerian Governors’ Forum has finally reacted to the yesterday’s judgment on the local government autonomy. The Supreme Court ordered that the governors should stop tampering with the funds of the local government henceforth.
The 774 local government areas have been seriously impoverished by the state governors who sit tightly on the allocations for the councils. The local government heads have become stooges of the governors, hence, denying the local people basic development.
Governor of Kwara State, AbdulRazaq AbdulRahman, addressed the press on Friday.
“We welcome the ruling of the Supreme Court, compliance is given and our Attorney Generals have applied for the enrollment order, which we will study carefully.“
“But by and large, governors are happy with the devolution of power in respect to local government autonomy. It relieves the burden on governors.“
“Our people really don’t know how much states expend in bailing out local governments, and that’s the issue there.”
“Like I said, we haven’t seen the enrolment of the court order and so we really don’t know what is in there”.
“As for Kwara State in particular, AbdulRahman said the judgment will not negatively affect it as the state government has not been tampering with local council funds.“
“It’s not going to affect the state we’ve never tampered with local government funds.”
“So it’s going to continue. What the local governments have to do is to manage themselves, especially with the oncoming minimum wage, to manage their affairs and make sure salaries are paid, traditional rulers get their 5% and those are the main issues,” he said.
The Kwara Governor was with his Imo state counterpart Senator Hope Uzodinma during the conversation, the Imo governor said they were at the State House to see the president on various issues.
According to him, “We’ve seen the President on various issues from minimum wage, which he met with labour yesterday, the Supreme Court ruling and other national issues that concerns states as well.”
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