The Chief of Staff to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila has stated that the collapse of local government in the country has pushed responsibilities and interventions on legislators, which is outside their primary constitutional responsibilities of making laws.
He stated this while delivering a goodwill message at a retreat for chairmen and deputy chairmen of the House in Abuja on Monday.
He said that lawmakers are now faced with making various interventions at local levels, which in the past was being performed by local governments for the people at the grassroots.
Gbajabiamila said, “The collapse of local government administrations across the country has created a situation where constituents look to their legislative representatives to fill the gap and perform municipal functions in their various communities.
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“It has become the legislator’s responsibility to cater to every constituency’s needs, from primary healthcare to basic education services, from maintenance of markets to support for rural cooperatives and provision of critical social infrastructure.”
The former speaker lamented that local governments have been systematically weakened and people now look up to federal and state legislators for interventions to make the people feel a sense of access to the dividends of democracy, which he said was an anomaly.
