CONFAB COMMITTEE CALLS FOR SCRAPPING OF LGS

Members of the Committee on Devolution of Power and Restructuring in the ongoing National Conference yesterday called for the removal of the existing 774 local governments from the Nigerian constitution, just as it also rejected calls for state police by some people in the country.
The committee members in their argument were requesting that the states legislature be part of the move to introduce two tiers of government in the country.
The resolution was sequel to the protest by members of the Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE) who stormed the National Judicial Institute (NJI), venue of the National Conference yesterday to protest the recommendation of the committee to scrap the status of local councils in the country.
The committee focused on local government administration in the country when it resumed sitting yesterday and recommended that the list of local councils as contained in the first schedule, part 1 of the 1999 constitution be removed and transferred to the states. It argued that “it will be covered by a law of the state Houses of Assembly, in a move to rejig the grassroots administration in the country.”
The committee had after its deliberation on the issue last week recommended the removal of local councils as the third tier of government and gave express authority to states executive to determine the number to operate in their states among others, even as it insists that Nigeria would remain a federation with the existing 36 states structure as the units.
The committee, chaired by General Ike Nwachukwu (rtd), received the National Vice President of NULGE, Lucky Gospel Ewa, who led other members of the group, who faulted the committee on its position and expressed worry that the status of local government was being threatened at the National Conference. Ewa argued that the local government, being the government closest to the people, is the surest way of accelerating socio-economic development, alleviating poverty and rural democratic mobilisation in any polity.
Wondering why the enviable height attained in the local government cannot be sustained, he lamented the conscious efforts being made to further erode the gains already recorded by the tier of government.
While blaming the state governors for the move, which he said was unacceptable; Ewa disclosed that the clamour by state governments to have dominant control over local government is being driven by illusionary rivalry of executive powers being alleged on the part of council chairmen.
He argued that the transfer of the responsibility of local councils to the state government will return local government to the pre-1976 era and also that of 1979-1983 with its attendant implications and danger of political power concentration.
He said: “Nigeria should not forget in a hurry, the condition of the local government between 1979 and1983, when state government had dominant control over local governments. Our memory should not fail us to recall that no state conducted election into local government councils.
“The excruciating handling of the local government affairs by the state government contributed to the overheating of the polity that eventually collapsed the second republic.” On the creation of additional local governments, he contended that the power should reside with the Federal Government, using population and landmass as a major criteria so as to address the problem of imbalance among other recommendation by the NULGE.
“No matter the driving force behind the intention to abolish local government as a tier of government and remove the guarantee of its autonomy from the constitution, be it economic or political or both as we understand it to be, the union wishes to reiterate its recommendations that the system of local government by democratically elected local government council should be guaranteed by the constitution,” Ewa added.
The committee also adopted the recommendation that the functions of local governments as contained in schedule 4 of the 1999 constitution shall be transferred to the states subject to the power of the state Houses of Assembly to add or reduce from the list, reaffirming section 7 of the 1999 constitution that the system of local governments by democratically elected local government council is guaranteed.
Source: National Mirror