The Senator representing Kebbi South, Bala Na’Allah, has said that endemic corruption in states is hindering the actualisation of local government autonomy.
Na’Allah noted that achieving local government autonomy is critical for Nigeria to attain true federalism and development of key infrastructures.
Speaking at a one-day public policy dialogue on good governance and service delivery at the grassroots level organised by PERL-ECP in Abuja, he urged state governments to allow Local governments operate independently for needed resources to get to those at the bottom of governance.
He added that the creation of local government was done to enable all groups in the country develop evenly for Nigeria to attain the journey of nation building.
“The factor militating the desire of our constitution in local government administration, are people under the guise of political party that would take local government and state government administration more of an enterprise than governance issues.”
“Therefore when election come people with money would finance the state government to win election and later the local government elections would be done for them to channel the money allocated to local government through their company to enhance corruption,” he said.
However, he noted that through a very determined civil society and policies to make the system in a manner that makes taking money impossible, the affairs of local government would be unattractive to state governments.
Commenting, the National Coordinator of PERL-ECP, Dr. Adiya Ode, said Nigeria is in a service delivery crisis and approaching the cliff edge due to many woes facing the country.
Ode said that the constitution made local governments in Nigeria the sole tier of service delivery adding that their inability to function effectively raised many questions about Nigeria.
“These shortfalls are all symptoms of a failure of governance and of an abject failure of the governance process to deliver services to the people particularly in health, education, infrastructure and security and a failure of accountability.”
