NULGE accuses governors of gang up against councils’ autonomy

The Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has accused the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) of gang up against financial autonomy for local government councils.

The union, which said the governors are opposing the passage of the council autonomy Bill into law, at its 40th anniversary, in Abuja, expressed regret that the Governors forum is doing everything to truncate the people’s will on the matter.

President of the union, Ibrahim Khaleel, disclosed that the leadership of the union had directed their members at the state level to begin mobilisation towards ensuring that opposing governors are voted out during the 2019 governorship elections.

According to him, after the National Assembly approved local government autonomy and passed to states assemblies to also perform their constitutional role, twelve states immediately approved the provision and passed it.

He, however, regretted that as soon as the Governors forum realised that the states were passing the bill, they quickly intervened and summoned a meeting with Speakers of the state assemblies.

He pointed out that the bill is still alive and not dead, adding that the union is strategising anew to ensure its passage soon.Part of what we are expecting to achieve tomorrow by bringing our membership from all the 774 local governments under one roof, look at our journey so far, our challenges and the way forward certainly is to have a fresh mandate, fresh resolution and eject more energy into our struggle to see how we can engage politicians across the board on how to achieve this even before 2019 election and we believe strongly that this struggle is achievable because the bill is alive at the state Assembly.

“So what we need is strong push and more so that the bill that was transmitted along this bill that frees state Assembly from financial control of the state government are already being assented to by the President. So, the state Assembly are now free to decide and do their work as legislatures without much interference from the state governors,” he said. Khaleel argued the local government workers are the most discriminated class of workers in the country.