Labour Lauds NASS for Voting in Favour of LG Autonomy

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has commended the National Assembly formally accepting, inserting and passing into the draft amended Constitution, their proposed amendments on Local Government reform and Labour Issues.

The NLC President Comrade Ayuba Wabba at a briefing in Abuja yesterday, said that National Assembly (NASS) took a giant step by voting overwhelmingly in favour of Local Government authority in spite of tremendous pressure from strong vested interest groups.

According to Waba the 8th National Assembly had made history and shall be remembered for bowing not to the insular interests but the popular wishes of the people.

Their initiative, he said, was an improvement on the efforts of the previous Assemblies, which goes to show that government was not only a continuum, with tenacity and requisite experience at the National Assembly, we shall get our democracy right.

He expressed no doubt that if passed into Law, these amendments will free-up the local governments from the strangle-hold of state governments and widen the democratic space as well as restore the lost glory of local governments.

The Labour leader said that the Local Government system of government known by various names, is the oldest form of administration, and sadly, the most abused and exploited in our post-colonial history.

He said: "Until progressive decline and bastardisation set in, the Local Government represented the centre of administrative excellence, clinical efficiency, training, education, development, tax administration and effective commodity boards.