By Ayodele Oni
The Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees,(NULGE) has asked former President Goodluck Jonathan to intervene in the move by the National Assembly to scrap the Third Tier of Government.
The Union’s Executives, on Thursday, visited the former President at his country home, Otuoke, Bayelsa state to seek his support.
The NULGE officials were there to seek the former President support against a Bill seeking to delist the local government as a tier of government.
A member of the House of Representatives, Mr Solomon Bob, had, in December, sponsored the bill to remove the third tier of Government from the Constitution.
Receiving the NULGE leaders, Dr Jonathan advised the National Assembly to, instead of scrapping the LG system, make laws that would strengthen it and grant it autonomy.
According to him, if he were a member of the National Assembly, he would mobilise his colleagues to amend sections of the Constitution to allow full democratization at the Local Government levels by allowing the people at the grassroots to decide who leads them, through election.
The former President maintained that Local Councils remain the oldest and globally acclaimed Government which impacts positively on the life of the people at the grassroots.
Dr Jonathan called on State Governors to refrain from interfering in the day-to-day running of Local governments affairs.
“The problem with Nigeria is that our Local Government structure is still very weak. And whatever restructuring we are talking about finally, Nigerians must sit down to discuss and the issue of Local Government autonomy must be considered.
“As long as we have weak Local Governments, we will have difficulty managing this country. The way it is now, the person who runs the state, runs the LGAs and that makes nonsense of the whole concept of the Third Tier of Government.
“The President should manage the Nation, Governors should manage the States and Chairmen should be allowed to run the Local Councils.
“And until we are able to do that, it will be difficult to impact on all the people at the grassroots level.
“It is only through Local Councils that the dividends of democracy can permeate uniformly into society. And all of us must advocate for this right.
“The issue of appointments now make Local Government Councils look like a part of the State’s administrative structure, but that is wrong.
“It is an abuse of democracy. So this appointment system have made Council Chairmen become like aides to the Governors and we must discourage that.”
