“Financial Autonomy for State Legislators to be concluded soon” – Bauchi State Speaker

The modalities for the implementation of the Financial Autonomy for State Legislatures in Nigeria will soon be concluded.

The Speaker of Bauchi State House of Assembly, and the Chairman Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures in Nigeria, Mr Abubakar Suleiman, made this known during an interview with Voice of Nigeria in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

“It was a very robust and rigorous deliberation between the Governors and Legislative and Judicial arm of government. The final thing is that we are almost there. We have agreed on a lot of things especially between the Legislature and the Executive arm. We made an offer and we are waiting for them to go and meet and then revert back to us for their final position but we are almost there.

“Contrary to opinions or understanding that the governors are not in support of financial autonomy and at that meeting we were made to understand clearly that they are one hundred per cent in support of financial autonomy to the legislature and judiciary arm of government. What actually went wrong as they said is the issuance of the executive order 10, there was no need for it. The issuance of the order, it’s like the presidency is indicting them and they said they didn’t say they are not going to grant that autonomy but because of that particular issue, they said they were in the process of implementing it or granting it when all of a sudden Mr. president wanted that order 10. But actually, our meeting was very successful, I can summarily say that we are almost there.”

Speaking On how Autonomy would strengthen Nigeria’s Democracy Mr Abubakar added that “In a democracy, we have three arms of government which are expected to work independently with each other but in a situation whereby an arm of government, if you need money to do something you have to go to the other arm of government, you have to go to other arms of government requesting it, it can sabotage that effort then the financial autonomy is implemented, which means we are independent we will no more go to them looking for money, so we can do our own without any interference. We are to check the executive arm of government and if we are being financed by the same arm of government that we are supposed to check then definitely something is wrong there. But if we get this independence it will like my colleague said it will deepen democracy. It will make democracy more functional and more encouraging,” he explained.

It would be recalled that over the years, the Conference of Speakers of the State Legislatures in Nigeria had urged President Muhammadu Buhari to issue an executive order on autonomy for State legislatures to carry out their respective constitutional duties without fear of dominance or marginalization.

In May 2020, President Buhari signed Executive Order number 10 into Law, which guarantees the Financial Autonomy of the State by the Legislature and State Judiciary.

The Development, means steady and regular incomes for the Judiciary and Legislature, as well as mandating the Attorney-General of the Federation to authorise a deduction from source money allocated to States that fail to release allocations meant for the two arms of government.

Since then, series of meetings with the Presidency, the Governors, Legislative and Judicial arm of government to achieve this mandate has been held.

PIAK