From Benjamin Babine, Abuja
The Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has threatened to shut down all the 774 local governments in the country if the National Assembly persist in what they called “anti-people plot,” to remove the local government from the constitution.
The National President of NULGE, Comrade Ambali Akeem Olatunji, said the union will mobilize all its members to protest and resist the plot. Speaking with journalists in Abuja, he said the union has written to the leadership the House of Representatives, to voice their opposition to the bill.
He said they also demanded that the union be invited for discussion within the next two weeks. He stressed that strike will be the ultimate if the legislators remain don’t desist. He further said that there will be a mass protest and that they will shutdown all local governments across the country.
Comrade Ambali said: “We also know that this is a serious challenge to local government, and we are saying this, very soon if we engage them (NASS) and the leadership is not doing what is needful, we might direct our members to shut down the country in all the 774 local government, but we hope that they will not allow it to degenerate to that level.
“Once you delist local government as a tier of government, it shows that you have killed local government. Even, now that the local government remains a tier of government, the governors are pauperising local government and there are a lot of swindling of local government funds.”
He added: “That’s why they are not allowing democratic elected leadership at the local government level. What they are doing is to appoint their cronies as caretakers in local government so that they will continuously impoverished local government.”
The NULGE President explain that if the local government is made to work properly, the issue of insecurity and unemployment would be solved.
Speaking on local Government autonomy, he said he said it will move the country towards more peace and progress. He stated that 70 per cent of Nigerians live in the local government, and called on them to rise up to defend the local government system.
“Once there is no local government autonomy or a delisting of the local government as a tier of government, then you have condemned majority of the Nigerian people to poverty and continuously become enslaved in their own country. That will bring in anarchy, amplify insecurity and that will continuously hype poverty level and joblessness,” he said.