The Rivers State chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC) has urged the 27 lawmakers who defected to APC to domesticate the local government autonomy which was recently passed into law.

The caretaker committee chairman of the party in the state, Tony Okocha, gave the charge yesterday when he visited the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Martins Amaewhule, at his official residence in Port Harcourt, alongside his executive members.

Okocha said: “We are here to canvass support on the law recently passed by the National Assembly on local government autonomy and the conduct of local government election to be done by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), not Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC).

“The lifespan of the local government will expire sometime in June this year; we remind the Executive arm to immediately put in place the constitutional processes, which includes the list of timetable of elections within the time specifics.”

Okocha, however, alleged that within five months, the state government under the leadership of Siminalayi Fubara received the sum N144.2 billion from the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).

The amount according to him, beside internally generated revenue of the state, when put together, runs into about N10 billion every month.

He however noted the funds have not really been transmitted to action in terms of development in the state. He said despite the allocation received between June -November last year by Governor Fubara, the state is yet to see how it has been invested into developmental projects.

The APC chairman however expressed delight on how the defected legislators had out their legislative businesses and oversight functions.

He said: “The party leadership regretted that the governor was yet to represent the 2024 budget estimate to the state House of Assembly, even after the peace pact with President Bola Tinubu.

“This might sound unpalatable but annoying. As a party in opposition in the state, we shall not hesitate to punish any member of our party who is in cohort with this massive fraud of Rivers state fund.”

The Speaker, Martins Amaewhule, said the Assembly had recently, passed many bills into law, which includes local government autonomy bill, adding that the lawmakers have also reverted the embargo on the use of public facilities for political activities in the state.