Wole Adedeji
The Kwara Local Government workers under the aegis of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has asked Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq and members of the state’s House of Assembly to speed up the process to midwife total autonomy of local government system in the state.
Their position was that the Local Government tier as constitutionally recognized in government should be independent in administration and financing.
Kwara President of NULGE, Comrade Oyinlade Seun Adeleye, in a press conference in Ilorin urged Governor AbdulRazaq to come out open and break his seeming silence on the vexed issue of local government autonomy in the state.
He described the Local Government autonomy as the catalyst to security of lives and property as well as the developments required at the grass roots stressing that the third tier of government could not be an appendage of the state government for whatever reason.
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His words, “It is our plea to Kwara State Governor to in conjunction with the state House of Assembly, expeditiously speed up the process required for Kwara to be listed among comity of States that respect the wishes of the people at the grass roots, which local government autonomy symbolises.
“We also wish to use this opportunity to call on the Governor of Kwara State to break his long silence on the vexed issue of local government autonomy.
“Our Governor must rise and invest in the trust of the Kwarans majority to write his name in gold, by aligning himself with true democrats and progressives.
“Local government autonomy is the catalyst to the development. We are talking about security situation; food security and even human security. If the local government autonomy is in place, all these things will be very easy. We are not an appendage of the state government.
“The law recognizes us as the third tier of government. All what we are doing is for the benefit of the generality of everybody. It is not to our own benefit because we want development at the grass roots level”, he said.
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Comrade Adeleye also warned members of the state House of Assembly opposing the autonomy o
f Local Government, saying that members of the union would mobilize against them in the forth-coming general elections.
The NULGE President also told the lawmakers not to pay lip service to the autonomy of Local Government system because according to him, people at the grass roots deserve quality of life.
He added, “This is the right time to do the needful, because this is when they can listen to us. They need us very much now. If they (Members of the State House of Assembly) decided not to vote for local government autonomy, we will also decide not to vote for them.
“They need us now, and we all belong to wards and polling booths. We are going to show and prove our worth to them”, he emphasised.