After the decision of the Supreme Court which ordered local government autonomy and reduced the powers of state governors, the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Governor of Kwara State, AbdulRazaq AbdulRahman, has hailed the decision. He stated this today Friday while speaking with newsmen at the State House Abuja noting that state governors are comfortable with the Supreme Court judgment that granted financial autonomy to the local governments.
According to him, the ruling had relieved the governors of a burden, noting that they are happy with the devolution of powers to the third tier of government. “We welcome the ruling of the Supreme Court, compliance is given and our Attorney Generals have applied for the enrollment order, which we will study carefully. But by and large, governors are happy with the devolution of power in respect to local government autonomy. It relieves the burden on governors.“
He maintained that the NGF had requested for the enrolment of the judgment and will be reviewing it next Wednesday to decide the way forward. “Our people really don’t know how much states expend in bailing out local governments, and that’s the issue there.”
He also revealed that the Forum would meet next Wednesday, to look at the issue wholly and then come up with a resolution on that. “Like I said, we haven’t seen the enrolment of the court order and so we really don’t know what is in there.”
As for Kwara State in particular, AbdulRahman said the judgment will not negatively affect it as the state government has not been tampering with local council funds. “It’s not going to affect the state we’ve never tampered with local government funds. So it’s going to continue. What the local governments have to do is to manage themselves, especially with the oncoming minimum wage, to manage their affairs and make sure salaries are paid, traditional rulers get their 5% and those are the main issues,” he said.
The Kwara Governor was with his Imo state counterpart Senator Hope Uzodinma during the conversation, the Imo governor said they were at the State House to see the president on various issues. According to him, “We’ve seen the President on various issues from minimum wage, which he met with labour yesterday, the Supreme Court ruling and other national issues that concerns states as well.”