By Imam Moromoke
The Nigeria Union of Local Government Employee, NULGE has said Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara state and his counterparts from 8 other states are responsible for all the agitations about insecurity, disintegration, unemployment, lack of belief and hope in the Nigerian nation because of their greed, cornering and misappropriation of local government resources.
According to THE PUNCH report, Ogun, Katsina Anambra, Osun and Zamfara states had not conducted local government elections despite the expiration of elected officers’ tenures.
Also, while Kwara suspended elected officers, Imo and Oyo state governments sacked them, even when their tenures had not ended and replaced them with caretaker committees like the seven states mentioned earlier. Although Edo State has no local government caretaker committees, the local governments are being administered by heads of administration.
The Union noted that, “If we are to get things right in Nigeria, it is time to approve local government autonomy because all these agitations about insecurity, unemployment, lack of belief and hope in the Nigerian nation, leading to agitation for self-determination and disintegration of the country is borne out of the greed of most of those who claim to be political elite, who corner local government resources and misappropriate them.”
Meanwhile, giving the ultimatum in an interview with PUNCH on Friday, the National President of NULGE, Hakeem Ambali, stressed that members of the union would storm the National Assembly and the state assemblies to express their dissatisfaction with the way the Governors were running the third tier of government.
Ambali said, “About nine state governors are diverting and pilfering local government funds, thereby denying the people at the local government level the right to benefit from social amenities that should be provided by the local government.
“As a matter of urgency, Mr President should sign an executive order preventing any state government that failed to conduct local government election from having access to local government allocations so that even if the money is released to the local government account, it should be for salary payment alone.
“They have to teach them (Governors) a lesson; that is why NULGE would continue to be involved in agitation until the actualisation of political and financial autonomy for local governments.
