A member of the Governing Board of North East Development Commission (NEDC), Hon. Sam Onuigbo, has commended the Supreme Court for its landmark judgment on the issue of fiscal autonomy to Local Government Councils in Nigeria.
He disclosed that he began advocating for LG autonomy after serving in different capacities as Special Adviser to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Commissioner for Lands and Survey, Commissioner for Finance, Abia State and his subsequent election into the House of Representatives in 2015.
Onuigbo, who is also the Chairman, Committee on Security, Climate Change, and Special Interventions on the Governing Board of NEDC, stressed that the emasculation of the local governments by state governors was responsible for slow growth of democracy in the country
According to the former lawmaker, the development also led to the lack of productive engagement of the teeming unemployed youths in the grassroots and the attendant insecurity.
He recalled that although former President Muhammadu Buhari signed Executive Order 10 granting fiscal autonomy to the councils, the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) found a way around it through the same apex court and continued holding down the council funds through the Joint States and Local Governments Accounts regime.
While commending the President Ahmed Bola Tinubu administration for undergirding the constitutional provision for local government autonomy with judicial pronouncement, Onuigbo said he anticipates that the abolition of State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs) would follow suit to ensure transparent local governments.
In a statement to journalists in Abuja, yesterday, the former federal lawmaker regretted that for over 24 years the local government system was left to wallow in incessant manipulation by state governments, stressing that he has been vindicated.
Peoplesmind