The Nigerian Government and the National Assembly have been advised to revisit the issue of Local Government Autonomy in the country for better service delivery at the grassroots.
The National President of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, Alhaji Ambali Hakeem, made the call in an interview with newsmen at the Michael Imoudu National Institute For Labour Studies, Ilorin in Northcentral Nigeria.
Hakeem said officials and members of NULGE were at the institute for an In-Plant Workshop organised to achieve human capital development and scale up their knowledge and skills in terms of collective bargaining.
According to him, at present, the country is passing through a very difficult phase where workers are finding it very difficult to exist hence to engage the employers of labour, they need to reorganize and reengineer their skills to be able to bargain for better welfare remuneration package for local government workers.
He disclosed that they had led a campaign for a 300% minimum wage rise for Nigerian workers in the local government for them to be able to withstand the present economic reality in the country.
He noted that Local Government Autonomy would enhance adequate security, and pave the way for financial autonomy thereby ensuring meaningful development at the grassroots.
He stated that the local government bill did not scale through at the National Assembly then despite the heavy amount of mobilisation and sensitization and rally they have done, which he attributed to opposition by various state governments occasioned by greed and zeal to continue to pilfer local government resources.
“They also capitalised on the nature of the Nigerian Society because the local government autonomy struggle is not only for NULGE, it is for you and it is for me, you’re from the rural community, you are from the local government, if your local government performs better you can go to sleep, you can go to your village, now I know before you go to your village you have to take special prayer or fasting so that you won’t be attacked by bandits and kidnappers, so, it is because that level of government that is very important is missing in action because they have been pulverized, local governments have continued to witness financial rape from the state governments and that has crippled effects and activities of the local government,” the NULGE President lamented.
He also disclosed that their focus is to achieve a more vibrant and stronger, people-driven and people-centred local government in Nigeria, stressing that people are frustrated, jobless and hopeless, massive insecurity, infrastructural decay and that there is food insecurity in Nigeria.
Akeem said the way to go if Nigeria wants to achieve community security, is to grant local government autonomy so that they will have administrative autonomy, financial autonomy as well as political autonomy so that elections conducted at local governments will be a direct reflection of the political aspiration of the Nigerian people, claiming that what is going on presently, is not an election at the local government but a coronation, adoption and promotion of those political jobbers.
Among the solutions he offered to the government is to consider an alternative Energy supply where the government will as a matter of urgency assemble technocrats who would work on solar energy as a means of alternative energy to power various homes and offices.
He also called on the government to look at the operation of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) as the nation losses large volumes of natural gas that are being wasted.
The NULGE President further suggested that the Nigerian Government should cut down the size of governance, as Nigeria can not continue to go on with a retinue of aides, convoy of vehicles of 15 to 100.
He advised that the money realized from such could be reinvested in the education sector and make primary to secondary education free while tertiary education would be subsidized.
According to him, the government must also look at the area of providing some Agricultural equipment and fertilizers at a subsidised rate for the farmers and as well provide local security so that farmers will be able to go back to the farm and thereby provide food for Nigerian people.
Similarly, he advocated that the government needs to look at the bank interest rate as a matter of emergency and instruct banks to grant loans to SMEs at single-digit interest rates and to farmers’ cooperative societies and enable them to have direct access to reduced interest rate loans.
According to him, it is unreasonable, ungodly and unacceptable to increase school fees around this time, while the issue of increments of tariff should also be jettisoned immediately so that Nigerians who are to witness a better Nigeria would not die earlier than the date stating that it is only the living that enjoys the dividends of democracy.
Hakeem also implored the government to deploy and subsidize mass buses to ease transportation challenges for the masses and also subsidize agriculture input for adequate food security.
The NULGE President advised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to come up with programmes and policies just as done during the Babangida regime to cushion the effect of the subsidy removal.
