The Plateau State chapter of the National Union of Local
Government Employees (NULGE) on Thursday, April 20, 2017 staged a solidarity
march to the offices of the Speaker of the House of Assembly and that of the
Executive Governor of the Stat, Rt. Hon. Simon Bako Lalong, during which they
submitted a memorandum.
Speaking at the solidarity march, Comrade Ibrahim
Abdulkadir, National President of NULGE, said: ”This is a nationwide advocacy
campaign. The national leadership of NULGE decided to drive this process across
the length and breadth of Nigeria to canvass for constitutional reforms that
will strengthen the institutional framework of local government, considering
the fact that the prevalent situation in local governments is such that entire
system of government is missing in the political economy of our nation and even
though the Constitution of Nigeria recognizes the entire system of government
as the third tier government, with the democratic structure and at the same
time, it is one of the tiers of government that attracts much revenue. But the truth is that the entire system has
been hijacked by the by the political elites in our society.
“So, considering the fact that local governments anywhere in
the world are the nucleus of national political edifice, where it is now needs
improvement.”
In his own submission, Comrade Samson Mafuyai, the President,
Plateau State Chapter of National Union of Local Government Employee (NULGE)
and also the Deputy President National Labour Congress Plateau state Chapter, said
he was not comfortable as long as the local government staffs are receiving 55%
salary scale of what their counterparts are receiving at the state level,
He noted that the discrepancy in the salary structure of the
state was a flagrant abuse of office by the last administration. He said it is unacceptable
and the discrimination must be stop.
He said: “This is one of the reasons that are driving us to
seek for the autonomy. If we are in control of our funds and we are unable to
pay salaries, we will understand because, if your local government becomes too
broke that they don’t have enough money to pay staff salaries you cannot hold
anybody responsible. We will manage our problems by ourselves,” he added
Mafuyai said “We had series of court cases with the last
administration but, when his Excellency Governor Simon Bako Lalong came, he
said, he prefers out of court settlement and we entered into an agreement with
the government and he agreed to pay us our four months withheld salaries”.
He said, the governor equally promises that when revenue
improves he would put local government on the same salary scale with the state.
Mafuyai thanks the National President of NULGE and all those
who troop out to support the solidarity march.
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