Former President Goodluck Jonathan has\u00a0 urged the National Assembly to make local governments autonomous, arguing that the third tier of government\u00a0 should be vested with powers to generate revenues.<\/p>\n
Jonathan said if he were a member of the National Assembly, he would mobilise members to amend sections of the 1999 Construction that would prohibit the appointment of local government chairmen.<\/p>\n
Jonathan spoke when the national and state executives of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) visited him in Otuoke, his Bayelsa State country home.<\/p>\n
Jonathan said: \u201cThe problem with Nigeria is that our local government structure is still very weak.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever restructuring we are talking about, finally, Nigerians must sit down to discuss and the issue of LGA autonomy must be considered.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as we have weak local governments, we would have difficulty managing this country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way it is now, the person who runs the state, runs the LGAs and that makes nonsense of the whole concept of the third tier of government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe President should manage the nation; governors should manage the states and chairman should be allowed to run the local councils.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil we can do that, it would be difficult to impact the people at the grassroots level.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is only through local councils that the dividends of democracy can permeate uniformly into the society. And all of us must advocate for this right.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIf I were in the Senate, I would have mobilised members to ensure that we amend the constitution in a way that would prohibit the appointment of chairmen to run governance at the local council level.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe issue of appointment now makes local government council look like a part of the state\u2019s administrative structure, but that is not what ought to be the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an abuse of democracy. So, this appointment system has made council chairmen become like aides to the governor and we must discourage that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has\u00a0 urged the National Assembly to make local governments autonomous, arguing that the third tier of government\u00a0 should be vested with powers to generate revenues. Jonathan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n