From Magnus Eze, Enugu
National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) said its members, nationwide, would soon stage peaceful protests at the homes of National Assembly members.
The union also said local government workers were being mobilised to march to the National Assembly, if a bill, seeking to delist the local government system from the constitution, was not dropped in the House of Representatives.
NULGE National President, Akeem Ambali, made the disclosure in Enugu, yesterday, during the continuation of the union’s sensitisation of its members on the ongoings about what he termed ‘killer bill’ sponsored by Bob Solomon of Abua Odual/Ahoada East federal constituency of Rivers State.
He said Solomon was a major beneficiary of the local government, adding that his education from primary to university, having been funded by a person in the third tier of government.
He decried the emasculation of the local government system by state governors because of the connivance of the Houses of Assembly, even when the seventh National Assembly had passed a bill for local government autonomy.
Ambali accused the Peoples Democratic Party of criminal conspiracy to kill the local governments.
“The sponsor of the bill is from Rivers where Governor Nyesom Wike is a product of the local government system. Wike was discovered and nurtured by the local government before he went to Abuja and eventually became governor,” he said.
Regardless, National Vice President, South East, Patrick Igwe, urged Nigerians, especially members of NULGE and their families to pray for local government autonomy and against the move to scrap the third tier of government.
“If this obnoxious bill proposing that only 50 workers should be permanent staff of each local government is not stopped, there will be mass retrenchment. Even the traditional rulers will suffer it,” NULGE said.