By Ken Chiwendu
Following the Supreme Court judgment giving the 774 Local Government Councils autonomy,Governors from the 36 States of the Federation under the aegis Nigeria Governor’s Forum have scheduled a crucial meeting next week
Chairman of the Forum, Governor Abdulrazak AbdulRahman of Kwara state disclosed this while addressing State House Correspondents after a meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Gov AbdulRahman, expressed delight over the Apex court’s decision saying governors who have been using their resources to bail out local governments have been relieved of a burden.
“We welcome the ruling of the Supreme and our Attorney Generals have applied for the enrollment order, which we’ll study carefully.”
“But by and large, governors are happy with the devolution of power in respect to local government autonomy. It relieves the burden on governors. Our people really don’t know how much states spend in bailing out local governments, and that’s the issue there.”
The NGF chairman affirmed that the NGF had requested for the enrollment of the judgment and would be reviewing it to decide the way forward.
“The forum will meet next Wednesday, to look at the issue wholly and then come up with a resolution on that.”
“Like I said, we haven’t seen the enrollment of the court order and so we really don’t know what is in there,” he stated.
Speaking for his state, the governor said the judgment would not affect it in any way as the government has never tampered with council funds.
“It’s not going to affect the state we’ve never tampered with local government funds. So it’s going to continue. What the local governments have to do is to manage themselves, especially with the oncoming minimum wage, to manage their affairs and make sure salaries are paid, traditional rulers get their 5% and those are the main issues,” he said.
Gov AbdulRahman who was flanked by his Imo State counterpart, Hope Uzodimma, and Bauchi, Bala Mohammed, said they were at the Presidential Villa to see the president on various issues, ” from minimum wage, which he met with labor yesterday, the Supreme Court ruling and other national issues that concern states as well. It’s omnibus.”
