The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Sunday told the National Assembly to grant full autonomy to Local Government Councils in the new Constitution.<\/p>\n
The appeal is contained in a statement signed by the NLC President, Mr Abdulwahed Omar.<\/p>\n
Omar said it was pertinent for the lawmakers not to truncate the will of the people to provide full autonomy to the Local Government Councils.<\/p>\n
He said the Local Government Council were closer to the people and “it is only when they are fully independent that Nigerians can enjoy the benefits of democracy.<\/p>\n
”Rather than continue to tie the Local Governments to the State Governments, the Constitution should ensure that funds meant for Local Governments go directly to them.<\/p>\n
”All funds and other resources generated by the Local Governments should be managed by them and not the State Governments,” Omar said.<\/p>\n
He said that such step could deepen democracy in Nigeria and ensure a working federal system that would benefit the people.<\/p>\n
The president said that people were united on the autonomy decision during the public sessions held in 2012 in all the 360 constituencies.<\/p>\n
He said the public sessions were held by the House of Representatives in collaboration with labour and civil society groups in the country.<\/p>\n
Omar said that Nigerians were also united that labour and industrial relations matters must remain in the exclusive list as it was in the 1999 Constitution.<\/p>\n
The NLC chief said the decision must not be tampered with in the interest of industrial peace and the principles of tripartism.<\/p>\n
According to Omar, tripartism promotes transparency, fairness and result-oriented collective bargaining.<\/p>\n
He advised the National Assembly not to allow itself to be used to impose tenure elongation for any political office.<\/p>\n
The unionist said that Nigerians had consistently opposed tenure elongation since it was introduced to public discourse and legislative attention.<\/p>\n
“We remain opposed to it and will resist any attempt to smuggle it into the report because Nigerians have consistently been opposed to it,” he said.<\/p>\n
Omar said the attitude of subjugating the collective interests of Nigerians had not been helpful in the delivery of good governance.<\/p>\n
He said that anyone advocating the sustenance of retrogressive and anti- people provisions in the Constitution was against development.<\/p>\n
He called on the House to make its report public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Sunday told the National Assembly to grant full autonomy to Local Government Councils in the new Constitution. The appeal is contained in a statement…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n