Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) insists state governments must adhere to the ruling of the Supreme Court that granted complete autonomy to the 774 local government councils across the country.

This position has also been echoed by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), which has pledged logistics support to NULGE to achieve total independence for the lowest cadre of government.

Speaking at the inauguration of its 8th National Administrative Council (NAC) where Aliyu Haruna Kankara was sworn in to replace Olatunji Ambali as the National President, President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, faulted recalcitrant state governors that are unwilling to comply with the ruling of the Supreme Court, which granted financial autonomy to the local government councils.

This position has been consistently maintained by the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, who has threatened, on several occasions, not to release allocation to unelected officials at the local government level.

Ajaero said: “Yes, there are some state governors that are yet to implement the ruling of the Supreme Court over autonomy to the local government councils. We are ready to support NULGE to tackle this challenge.”

The new National President said his administration would go on with the struggle for the actualisation of total autonomy of the local councils.
He argued that the landmark judgment of July 2024 served as a buffer to NULGE’s struggle for an efficient local government system in Nigeria.

“However, it is still necessary to proceed with the struggle to achieve an administratively and politically autonomous local government. We will intensify all efforts, which include reaching out to stakeholders, canvassing our legislators at various states and continued tenacious advocacy for an autonomous local government system in Nigeria,” he stated.

The NULGE chief also flayed the low salary of its members in the core civil service, saying: “We noted the sad reality that our members in the mainstream service are the most poorly remunerated, without any special allowances as a benefit by our counterparts in the education and health sectors.”

He identified that NULGE’s non-representation in the three councils of the Joint Public Service Negotiating Council (JPSNC) made it difficult for the union to negotiate welfare issues for its members.

He added that it is part of his team’s agenda to ensure that the Federal Government constitutes a fourth council, with a mandate to negotiate for special peculiar allowances and other favourable conditions of service for its members.

Kankara hinted that his team will undertake massive human capacity development, adding that this will be done through the encouragement and facilitation of constant training and retraining of members and staff of the union while providing facilities for empowerment and self-reliance, where they can generate additional income to augment their monthly salaries.He said the national secretariat will guide state chapters, particularly where they do not have operational ones, to organize cooperative societies and also encourage staff to subscribe to them. He disclosed that as someone who believes that effective leadership runs on the ideology of inclusiveness, his administration will provide systems that will strengthen the capacity and operation of state and local chapters and also the capacity of the various organs of the union.

“The Young Workers’ Representatives and the Women Committees will be strengthened, giving them the unfettered opportunity to harness their potentials by facilitating time-to-time capacity-building training to equip them with modern trends in leadership and innovative ideas to keep them up to date with changing realities of our present world,” he said.

The NULGE helmsman added that the new administration will facilitate housing and car loan schemes for its members and insurance schemes for officials.
“Housing and mobility, being important assets, our administration will engage Federal Mortgage Bank to build houses for our members across the 36 states and FCT, just as our members would be encouraged to own houses in mega cities across the country. Apart from this, we shall come up with an insurance scheme for our officials to protect them against any form of hazard.”