In line with true democracy and United Nations’ stand on decentralisation of governance for effective development, National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has mounted fresh campaigns for local government autonomy in Nigeria.
The renewed campaign for local government autonomy is coming on the need for governance being nearer to the people to enhance development and checkmate rural-urban migration. The body said rural-urban migration had its consequences on the cities and rural communities.
The local government employees vowed to continue with the struggle to achieve autonomy of local government for speedy development at that level in Nigeria.
Speaking to journalists recently, the NULGE national chairman, Ibrahim Kahleel said body is canvassing for the decentralization of power from federal and states nearer to the people for inclusive arrangement of governance and administration at that level.
He said the essence of any local government any where in the world is to provide a platform for improvement of immediate environment for a good living but regretted that in Nigeria, the Constitution which provides for local government administration has been put aside for interest of few people.
Kahleel directly accused state governors for strangulating local government system by depriving people their rights and electing their cronnies as chairmen. “In some states, governors appoint their cronies to man the affairs of local government at the detriment of democracy at that level”.
According to Kahleel, “this causes a huge gap of disconnect between the people and democrazy and between the people and governance. This creates a lot of chaos and insecuty in our communities and this also enhances rural-urban migration that makes our cities inhabitable”.
He said NULGE is demanding the amendment of 1999 Constitution to correct certain contradictions. NULGE wants the scrapping of the provision that establishes state independent electoral commission.
Secondly to abolish the existing laws in the Constitution that established the state-local government joint account so that whatever accrued to local government from federation would go to local government directly. Thirdly, NULGE is asking for administrative autonomy for local governments.
