ABUJA – Senate yesterday kick started its attempt at further amending the 1999, to free Local Government Councils from stranglehold of state governors.
The resolution came from a motion by Sen. Abdullahi Gumel (Jigawa NE), on the worrisome state of local government councils in the country.
The senators lamented the failure of LG administration in the country principally caused by their indiscriminate dissolutions and frequent replacement with caretaker committees by state governors aside lack of financial autonomy.
They observed that the trend has always resulted in low morale and poor performance of the councils to the detriment of the people at the grassroots.
Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi-West), in his contribution to the motion, described as satanic, attitude of some governors to the LGCs that make them unable to pay salaries.
He defied instruction of the presiding Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu to withdraw the comment as it consists unparliamentary language.
The comment did not go down well with former governors as the Minority Leader and a former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godwill Akpabio, raised a point of order, demanding for withdrawal of the language.
Holding unto his ground, Sen. Melaye insisted that looting of council funds which he said has deprived innocent persons of their means of livelihood was “satanic”.
He cited the trend in his state, Kogi, where he alleged that workers were paid 30 per cent of their monthly salaries after being owed a backlog of arrears as an attestation to the “satanic” acts he referred to.
Dissatisfied, Akpabio again raised another point of order, saying it was wrong of Melaye to generalise the description of governors’ activities in local governments as satanic, noting that Akwa Ibom under his leadership conducted local government elections three times and also allowed councils to function effectively and restated his earlier demand for withdrawal of the language by Melaye.
On the strength of this, the DSP again enjoined Sen. Melaye to withdraw the statement. Not even another point of order by Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe (Abia South), could persuade the recalcitrant Melaye.
Other senators who contributed to the debate included Senators Joshua Lidani (Gombe South) and Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi (Niger North).
They all blamed state governors for failure of local government administration in the country.
They specifically submitted that the governors use state/Local government joint account of their respective states to render the councils financially impotent and called for constitutional amendment to stop the bad practice.
Consequently, the Senate mandated its Committee on States and Local Government to conduct a public hearing on the reforms meant to strengthen local government administration in Nigeria within the context of the 1999 Constitution of the Federation of Nigeria (as amended) and other extant laws.
