Financial Autonomy Act will end impunity, says Adegboruwa

A Lagos lawyer and human rights activist, Mr Ebun Olu-Adegboruwa, has lauded the Act granting financial autonomy to legislative and judicial arms of government at all levels, saying it will end impunity and arbitrariness on the part of the executive.

“Assenting to a bill that will successfully checkmate the powers of the Executive arm of government is a remarkable effort on the part of the President.

“It is now left to the various state legislatures and indeed the judiciary, to assert their independence in the proper sense, by detaching and extricating themselves from all forms of self-imposed timidity by which they had hitherto operated more like appendages of the executive arm,” Adegboruwa told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday.

NAN reports that President Muhammadu Buhari had on Friday assented to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 Alteration Acts (4th Alteration Act 4, 9, 16, and 21).

The lawyer still eulogizing the signing of the bill, he said: “I, therefore, commend the National Assembly and indeed the President for this great initiative.”

He said with the autonomy the country was moving towards true federalism and empowering of the various institutions and arms of government.

Adegboruwa noted: “The way towards the practice of true federalism is to empower the various institutions of the various tiers of government to be independent and autonomous, especially in the area of their finances.

“In this regard therefore, the 4th Alteration Bill passed by the National Assembly and assented to by the President is a laudable endeavour towards achieving true federalism.

“It helps to strengthen the legislature and the judiciary more to be able to perform their roles and monitor the executive arm from all forms arbitrariness and impunity.”

He called on the three arms of administration to synergize more to achieve true restructuring.

One of the ways to achieve that, according to Adegboruwa, is by decongesting the exclusive legislative list to allow the “ubiquitous federal government to shed its weight and allow the other tiers of government to function maximally.”

He expressed the hope that impunity and arbitrariness in the polity would become a thing of the past and Nigerians would begin to experience good governance at local, state and federal levels.