By Cross Udo, Abuja
The Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) yesterday warned the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) against any surreptitious move to thwart the recent Supreme Court judgment that granted total financial autonomy to the country’s local government administration or use any other means to make it ineffective.
Speaking at the colloquium during the 2nd National NULGE Week in Abuja, with the theme “Making Local Government Administration Work for Nigeria People,” the union’s National President, Comrade Ambani Akerman Olatunji, said a financially strong, people-driven local government is a democratic right of the Nigerian people.
The colloquium, attended by NULGE members, government, and trade union dignitaries, discussed topics such as transparency and accountability in financially autonomous local government in Nigeria and the impacts of local government autonomy on grassroots and local funding.
Olatunji said, “We want to sound a note of warning to members of the Nigerian Governors Forum, NGF, who started a surreptitious and clandestine move to thwart that judgment because of their insatiable appetite to continue to steal, misapply, and misappropriate government funds.
“The time to put a stop to it is now. A financially strong, people-driven, people-centred local government is a democratic right of the 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, human resources, and rich soil to continue to be the world’s poverty headquarters is unacceptable.”
He continued, “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 horns 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 brought another dimension to it out of his ingenuity. And that landmark judgment by the Supreme Court has put the whole matter to rest.”
He said, “We must rise 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, 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 issues 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. Bandits and terrorists occupy them, and nobody can go home. You can’t go to your village without visiting a mountain or going and praying.
“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 believe that 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 spite of insecurity in Nigerian rural communities and rural roads. Let us reduce poverty by creating vocational skill acquisition and empowerment for Nigeria.
“Once we can do that, Nigeria will be on the path of 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.”
