Gov’s influence killed LG autonomy’ From DANIEL GWASH, Gombe THE fear which state governors have of losing their firm political grip on chairmen of local government councils is the bane behind the rejection of local government autonomy by the Senate, Alhaji Ibrahim Sagir Abubakar, Chairman of Gombe Local Government Council has said. According to him, the Joint Account system between local government councils and state government has placed chairmen of councils under state governors. No governor would wish to dispense with this strong political advantage. Speaking with Journalists in Gombe, the Chairman stated that the rejection of LG’s autonomy didn’t come to him as a surprise and believe that governor’s influence would not allow that constitutional agitation to succeed. Governors are enjoying a lot of political leverage brought about by the Joint Account and cannot dare hands it off. He agitated for a constitutional provision that would empower state governments to enact edicts on local government administration since the autonomy status cannot be granted to the councils saying the mistake came right from the onset because the current constitution is silent over statutory functions of local governments. The chairman said this was why functions of local governments differ from state to state and also the reason for low development in the LGA as projects have to be approved by the state governors before they could be executed and approval do not come automatically. He argued that although joint account system has its advantages and disadvantages, one of the chief advantages is that LG’s with capacity are denied opportunity to perform and there is virtually nothing that they could do about the situation than to look and wait. According to the chairman of Gombe council, results of the joint account system is that projects are either executed lately or not approved at all no matter the importance and viability of the project to the people. The success of any chairman of council would greatly depend on his romance with the governor. If he is in the bad books of the governor, this would retard progress in the LGA. The chairman explained that these types of constitutional issues are made difficult because of money politics in which the electorate are bought over with meager amount of money. Until the electorate are able to understand the political suicide associated with this ugly trend, fighting for their rights would remain a mirage. He explained that the political crises in the Rivers State House of Assembly portends enormous dangers to the country’s democracy as it needs to be nib in the bud without any further delay saying it is a great threat to the survival and growth of the country’s democracy.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 11:41:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015