The leadership of the National Association of Local Government Employees (NULGE), on Thursday, alleged plans by some State governors working underground to truncate the autonomy of local government.
NULGE national president, Comrade Olatunji Ambali, who briefed journalists in Abuja on the update of Local Government autonomy, said only 10 out of the 12 States which passed the Autonomy Bill have voted in support of the autonomy.
He listed the states to include; Abia, Anambra and Enugu in the South-east, Edo, Akwa-Ibom and Delta in the South-south, Ogun and Osun in the South-west while Ekiti and Lagos states voted against the autonomy respectively.
In the North-central and North-west, Ambali said, only Kogi and Katsina states have endorsed the autonomy, while no state in the North-east has passed the bill.
Speaking further, Comrade Ambali accused the Ekiti, Plateau and Kebbi state governors of working against the passing of the local government autonomy.
He added that the governors have set-up nocturnal committees to truncate the autonomy.
He said, “We want to draw the attention of Nigerians to the clandestine, unholy and anti-people move by Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State who three days ago in Abuja has been mobilising various speakers of the state house assemblies, coercing, intimidating and inducing them to vote against local government autonomy.
“We have it on intelligence report that governor Fayemi had a nocturnal meeting with speakers of house of assembly again for the third time two days ago whereby directed that those that have not pass the local government autonomy should discontinue the discussion and the debate while those that have passed it should also look for a way to withdraw it, we don’t understand why governor Fayemi is desperate”.
“Governor Fayemi should prepare and defend himself against Paris Club Refund instead of trying to truncate the legitimate and democratic rights of Nigerian people who voted in support of local government autonomy.
“We also receive that an anti-people committee has been inaugurated under the leadership of governor Fayemi to be led by governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State to work against the realisation of Local government autonomy.
“We want to warn governor Lalong to be careful of his role presently, he should not send the wrong signal that his team is anti-people and they don’t like Nigeria.
“We also want to caution governor of Kebbi State, Abubakar Atiku Bagudu to be cautious of his move too and we will not support any party that move against governmental autonomy. We have options to vote for a better candidates, we therefore direct all our members to get your PVC and also showed the way out for this anti people leaders who are bent on destroying Nigeria,” he added.
Comrade Ambali noted that Nigeria will continue to slide towards disintegration if some state governors continue to undermine the autonomy of local government system.
He said the only solution to fixing Nigeria’s problems and rural-urban drift was for all the state governments to vote in support of local government autonomy.
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