A former National Acting chairman of all Progressives Congress, Chief Hillard Eta says he is 100% behind President Tinubu on local government reforms.
Eta disclosed this in an interview during the weekend while urging that states should be able to create more local government areas as long as they have the capacity to operate.
In his words, Etah argued thus “I personally believe that the local government should be under the states, what I mean by ‘they should be under the state’ is very different from what is happening now. They should be independent. What the president is trying to do now is to make the local governments independent of the states; giving them structure as it is in the constitution.”
He went on to add “I support the president hundred percent, one hundred percent, because you see, the state governments are using resources meant for the purpose as if it belongs to the state. In most cases, as if it belongs to them individually”.
Similarly, another APC Chieftain Okoi Obono-Obla has equally thrown his weight behind local government’s autonomy, decrying that the level of governance has become dysfunctional, and crippled since 1999, with absolutely nothing to show.
Obla declared “I stand for the autonomy of local government councils in Nigeria! Let me give you an example; I grew up in Ogoja, my father was a civil servant and in that time in the early eighties (80s) and nineties (90s). My mother used to be a contractor to help my father train us. She used to be a contractor to Ogoja local government council. But today, no local government council can award a contract. They cannot even carry out environmental sanitation. They cannot carry out urban planning, and that is why there is so much pressure on the federal government.”
Obla however kicked against the call to have the National Electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC to take over the conduct of local government elections, due to the compromise of many state electoral commissions. He reasoned that; “If we are saying there is too much concentration of power in the hands of the federal government, why are we now advocating for their taking over of the conduct of local government elections?”
He submitted thus; “the States’ Houses of Assembly should do their work to enhance the autonomy and the powers of state electoral commissions that conduct local government elections. They can take over the power of appointment of chairmen and commissioners of state elections commissions and put it in the hands of the people. The civil society should be responsible for the appointment of people of honesty and integrity as chairmen of electoral commissions and their commissioners.”
