The Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has urged Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq and the state House of Assembly to speed up process required to have financial autonomy for local government councils in the state.
Mr Oyinlade Adeleye, the President of the union, Kwara chapter, made the call during a news conference on Wednesday in Ilorin.
While appealing to AbdulRazaq to break his silence on the issue, Adeleye that Kwara should align itself with states that had passed the bill granting local government financial autonomy like Abia, Delta and Kogi.
The NULGE boss threatened that members would use their voters’ cards in the coming general elections against any lawmaker that oppose local government autonomy in the state.
He also advised the state legislators to go beyond advocating and vote for local government financial autonomy.
“We’ll not be violent in our vigorous agitation, but we are going to fight with our voters’ cards.
“What we’re going to tell our people is that any member of the state House of Assembly who voted against local government autonomy, our people would vote him or her out of office.
“We will not vote for them. And we’re ready for any party that’s ready to embrace the local government autonomy. That is, we’re going to instruct our people to vote for such a party,” he said.
According to him, the union members belong to wards, polling booths and different communities in the state and will deploy all means to mobilise people in order to achieve desired success.
Adeleye, who described local government autonomy as catalyst for grassroots development, said that financial autonomy at the councils would help tackle such challenges as food security or prevailing insurgency.
“If the local government autonomy is in place, all the challenges bedeviling the grassroots areas like food insecurity, banditry, kidnapping and all forms of insecurity would be easy to deal with.
“We are not appendages of the state government. We are more recognised as the third tier of government. All what we’re clamouring for is for the benefit of generality of the people and not for our own benefits.
“We want development at the grassroots level. Everyone belongs to one local government or the other. That’s why we should fight this battle together,” he said.
The NULGE boss in Kwara however commended members of the National Assembly and leaderships of both the Senate and House of Representatives for their post amendment intervention, geared towards rallying state legislators to vote in favour of ‘Autonomy of Local Government System’ in Nigeria.
“We are not unmindful of the outstanding principal concern of our struggle in relation to the autonomy of the local government, which is due to the desperation of some state governors to manipulate and truncate the quest for the independence of the third tier of government.
“Our governor must rise and invest in the trust of the Kwara people so as to write his name in gold by aligning himself with true democrats and progressives,” he said. (NAN)
