ABEOKUTA–A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), The Thursday Group (TTG), has opined that the country’s economy development is hinged on total reform of the local government, describing it as the only foundation to both physical and human resource growth.
The convener of the group, Kola Onadipe stated this while addressing journalists at the NUJ secretariat in Abeokuta, Friday.
He lamented that, “local government council areas’ socio-economic and political growth, as entrenched in the 1999 Nigerian constitution as amended, have deteriorated from bad to worse”.
Onadipe, who is the Secretary General of Yoruba Ko’Ya Leadership and Training Foundation however lauded the National Assembly for passing the bill granting full financial and administrative autonomy to local governments.
He therefore called for the devolution of powers to the local government, adding that, “No state government can be tagged successful in existence, without local government proper restructuring and programmes delivery”.
“The National Assembly have done their bit, it is now left to all the state Houses of Assembly to harmonise themselves together to ensure that those amendments that were passed in the National Assembly now get two-third of the member state to make it a law in Nigeria.
“The local government is the only solid foundation as bedrock to any meaningful development growth either in physical and urban development or human capital resource growth.
“A true and practical governance restructuring must centre on all the 774 LGs first, before state or regional governance and closely followed by Federal government in a reversal of current federal allocation sharing formula, as proposed in the 2014 National Confab Report.
“And until we decide to recalibrate on our political system-perhaps adopting a hybrid between presidential and parliamentary, the cost of participating in politics and electioneering/elections and even governance, will be so high and unaffordable to good conscience persons at this time.
“Consequently, our reset programme is designed to inject relevant advocacy, engaging civic public sessions, educating and positioning responsible and responsive human capital resource for the LG governance in particular.
“If we all concentrate appropriate attention to our respective LGs, every existing and emerging challenges will be “attacked” from its toot and diagnosed strategically and intelligently for permanent or long lasting solutions”, Onadipe said
