Nigerian LGAs Deserve The Power To Generate Revenue – GEJ

Ex-President, Goodluck Jonathan has come out to say that the National Assembly must make laws that would make local government councils autonomous.

He recently revealed when the national and state executives of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) paid him a courtesy visit at his Otuoke country home.

According to him, our LGAs deserve to have the power to generate revenue because the Local Government system is the oldest globally accepted means through which government impact positively on the lives of the people at the grassroots level

He added that any bill targeted at delisting LGAs from the constitution is an abuse of democratic tenets and procedures.

His words, “The problem with Nigeria is that our Local Government structure is still very weak. And whatever restructuring we are talking about, finally, Nigerians must sit down to discuss. And the issue of local government autonomy must be considered.”

“As long as we have weak local governments, we would have difficulty managing this country. The way it is now, the person who runs the state, runs the LGAs and that makes nonsense of the whole concept of the third tier of government.”

“The president should manage the nation, governors should manage the states and chairmen should be allowed to run the local councils.”

“And until we are able to do that, it would be difficult to impact all the people at the grassroots level.”

“It is only through local councils that the dividends of democracy can permeate uniformly into the society. And all of us must advocate for this right.”

“The local government councils must be strong, autonomous,, and allowed to generate its own revenue. If I were in the Senate, I would have mobilized members to ensure that we amend the constitution in a way that would prohibit the appointment of chairmen to run governance at the local council level.”

“The issue of appointment now make Local Government Council look like a part of the state’s administrative structure but that is not what ought to be the case. This is an abuse of democracy. So this appointment system has made council chairmen become like aides to the governor and we must discourage that.”