Governors from the 36 States of the Federation under the aegis of the Nigerian Governors Forum have scheduled a crucial meeting next week to review the judgment of the Supreme Court that granted autonomy to local government councils in the country.
Addressing State House Correspondents after a meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), and Governor of Kwara, AbdulRazaq AbdulRahman, said governor who have been using their resources to bail out local governments have been relieve of a burden.
The NGF Chairman also affirmed that the state chief executives were comfortable with the Supreme Court judgment.
“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 Kwara governor 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.
As for Kwara State in particular, AbdulRahman said the judgment would not negatively affect it as the state has not been tampering 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.
The NGF boss, 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, adding: “We’ve seen 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.”
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