States house of Assembly are responsible for the delayed Local Governments autonomy – Gbajabiamila
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has stated that the state Houses of Assembly and not the National Assembly should be held responsible for the delayed autonomy for local governments in Nigeria.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has stated that the state Houses of Assembly and not the National Assembly should be held responsible for the delayed autonomy for local governments in Nigeria.
The Speaker stated that the National Assembly has passed a bill to grant autonomy to the Local Government autonomy.
The Speaker disclosed this when he was at a leadership training sponsored by the Minority Leader of the House, Ndudi Elumelu, for council chairmen and councilors from Delta State in Abuja on Monday.
He said, “It is not for us as legislators (of the National Assembly) to do that. I am sure you are surprised, but it is actually for the people to address, the reason being that we have a constitutional amendment, we will throw it to the people and they will make their decision”.
“We did it the last time but we went back to the states and we couldn’t get two-thirds. There is a process; we followed due process. We amended it (the Constitution) the last time but two-thirds of the states did not agree with us.
“So, it is the people that will decide whether they want autonomy or not. We will do what we need to do as the Constitution provides.”
The Speaker expressed his belief that at the end of the training, the council officials would have received a lot of education on what leadership is all about.
“Some people are born leaders, some learn to acquire leadership but either way; whether you are born a leader or you acquire it, you have to go do that training exercise to be able to use your experiences and qualities you have in order to maximize your skills. And what better place to start than with the local government councilors? As you all know, that is the bedrock of our society,” Gbajabiamila noted.
