Tinubu deserves credit on LG autonomy but… Olulana, ex-Lagos LP gov candidate

A former governorship of the Labour Party in Lagos State, Dr Rotimi Olulana, has said he could award credit to President Bola Tinubu for granting financial autonomy to local governments in the country.

He told the Nigerian Tribune that he hoped that Nigerians would allow the overall aim of the move to be realised.

“I will give Tinubu’s administration credit in that area for what the president was planning to achieve with that if Nigerian will allow this policy to work. This is because the state governors are the ones controlling the affairs of the local governments and they dictate the terms.

“If you look at the aftermath of the National Assembly procedure on this local government’s issue, you will discover that the governors were quickly running to introduce some kind of laws to counter what the Federal Government is trying to put in place.

“So, the government of Tinubu, to the best of my knowledge, has a very good plan in that area with that perspective. Unfortunately, the situation we are facing now is that every region has a different opinion about it most especially state governors.

They want to remain the controllers of the affairs of local governments so that they can be dictating who becomes who in every local government, it is unfortunate, but I think we will get out of it, I think so,” Olulana said.

On the claim by critics that Nigeria does not need the local government system, but just federal and state as ties of government, he stated the LGs are more needed than the state government.

“This is because local governments are ones that deal with the grassroots; they are the ones that every village, local places and towns are directly under. They know who is who in every area and it’s from there that you have the obis, the obas, the emirs, and so on.

“The local government authorities know more about their areas. Look at the security situation in the country, local government functionaries are the people that organize some private security networks that are giving opportunity to our military and police to be able to know the nooks and crannies of the country.

“Without the local government, how do you get to know all this, how do you control the running of the local people, the towns and villages?

“Therefore, the local government is more needed than the state governments. So, I support fully that there must be local government and there must be autonomy for local governments across the country.”

Olulana also bared his mind on the call for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to be allowed to conduct elections into local governments, noting that the Nigerian situation is pathetic.

He queried: “What stops INEC from being in control of everything? It is because we don’t trust INEC. So, also we don›t trust the State Independent Electoral Commissions because they are being controlled by the state governments, but it should not be so.”

When you say INEC, we are talking about independent sector, an independent group of election personnel who have nothing to do with the government. They are independent, but in our situation, it is just a mouth saying, “There is nothing independent in INEC.”