States stealing LGs ’funds with joint account – Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says by design, most states have incapacitated local governments and have virtually stolen their money through the operation of joint accounts.

“They were to contribute 10 percent, but they never contributed anything,” he said.

Obasanjo spoke yesterday while hosting members of a NonGovernmental Organisation, Friends of Democracy, at his esidence inside Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.

The group sought his support for the LG Autonomy Bill.

Obasanjo described governors and lawmakers opposing local government autonomy as “enemies of the people.”

He said many councils could not perform their statutory functions because they had been “incapacitated financially” by the state governments.

He said the Local Government Reforms carried out in 1976 was meant to place LG as third tier of government closer to the people at the grassroots.

He asked the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) to demand for the autonomy in the interest of the people at the grassroots.

“When in 1976, we brought in Local Government Reforms, it was meant to be third tier of the government and not meant to be subjected to whims and caprices of any other government. Just the same way that the state government is autonomous from the Federal Government,”Obasanjo said.

He said: “But we must say those state executives and the legislatures that have prevented the bill from being passed, they must be taken as the enemIES of the people and they should be treated as such. Because if you enjoy autonomy from the Federal Government why don’t you want Local Government to enjoy autonomy?

Earlier in his address, the leader of the team, Ambassador Jerry Ugokwe, said Nigerians needed support of people like Obasanjo to speak in support of the local government administration which he said had been “impoverished” in Nigeria.