The demands for scrapping of state and Local Government
joint accounts and State electoral commission, financial and administrative
autonomy top the memo submitted to the Executive Governor Plateau State, His
Excellency Rt. Hon. Simon Bako Lalong, the Speaker Plateau State House of
Assembly Hon. Peter Azi, during the solidary match by the Plateau State Chapter
of National Union of Local Government Employee (NULGE) on 20th April, 2016 in
Jos, the state capital.
The solidarity procession which started at the State NLC
secretariat attracted overwhelming crowd and support for local government
autonomy as the third tier of government.
While, receiving the Memo from the NULGE National Chairman,
Governor Simon Bako Lalong promises to deliver the memo to the chairman Nigeria
Governors Forum and equally make inputs and submit same to the state House of
Assembly.
Governor Lalong said “I made a promise to Plateau People
that I don’t want to see Salaries arrears again” he said, it is disheartening
to find out that someone just siphoned over 7billion naira at a time when workers
were on strike for non-payment of salaries, ‘that money must be returned’ he
added.
Earlier, while receiving the MEMO from the National
Presidents of NULGE at the premises of the State House of Assembly, the Plateau
State Speaker, Rt. Hon. Peter Azi, said, “we in the Plateau State House of
Assembly adopted the position of NULGE, because we believed the autonomy will
strengthened the local government administration” he said they will give the
memo express approval.
In brief
As a result of lack of financial autonomy, local governments
have become a shadow of themselves. To put it succinctly, they have been
emasculated by the various state governments which continued to hold on to
their statutory revenue allocations under various guises.
The polity is awash with reports of state governments
tampering with statutory allocations of revenue allocated to the local councils
while the latter is unable to challenge this flagrant violation of the
constitution.
Speaking to the mammoth crowd that gathered to support the
Plateau NULGE, Comrade Stephen Aluko said, without the grassroots support and votes,
those in government wouldn’t have been
in their position today, he wonders why the same people are denying the local
government autonomy. He said “as long as there is no autonomy at the local
government level, there is no democracy in Nigeria”
Aluko said, during the presidential campaigned President
Buhari promised to give local government autonomy if voted into power, and
Nigerians are expecting nothing less than this, he added.
He said “if truly APC is for change and they wants to fight
corruption, then the right thing to do is granting autonomy to the local
government.
In
his own part Gad Shamaki noted that the issues of local government autonomy is
about rights, and freedom, because local governments operates at the grassroots
level and it is the closest government to the people, they must have financial
and administrative autonomy in order for development to be sustained. He said “Joint
account is a fraud and must stop
