NGF Chair Hails Supreme Court Judgement on LG Financial Autonomy

*Says govs ’ll meet Wednesday on way forward

Deji Elumoye in Abuja

Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Governor of Kwara state, AbdulRazaq AbdulRahman, on Friday declared that the state governors are comfortable with the Supreme Court judgment that granted financial autonomy to local governments.
Speaking with newsmen after meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the State House, Abuja, he said the ruling had relieved the governors of a burden, noting that they are happy with the devolution of powers to the third tier of government.
Asked particularly for his reaction to the apex court’s judgement, the Kwara Governor said: “We welcome the ruling of the Supreme Court, compliance is given and our Attorney Generals have applied for the enrollment order, which we’ll study carefully.
“But by and large, governors are happy with the devolution of power in respect to local government autonomy. It relieves the burden on governors.
“Our people really don’t know how much states expend in bailing out local governments, and that’s the issue there.”
He maintained that the NGF has requested for the enrolment of the judgment and will be reviewing it next Wednesday to decide the way forward.
His words: “The Forum will meet next Wednesday, to look at the issue wholly and then come up with a resolution on that.
“Like I said, we haven’t seen the enrolment of the court order and so we really don’t know what is in there”.
As for Kwara State in particular, AbdulRahman said the judgment will not negatively affect it as the state government has not been tampering with local council funds.
“It’s not going to affect the state we’ve never tampered with local government funds. So it’s going to continue. What the local governments have to do is to manage themselves, especially with the oncoming minimum wage, to manage their affairs and make sure salaries are paid, traditional rulers get their 5% and those are the main issues,” he said.
The Kwara Governor who was joined by his Imo State counterpart, Senator Hope Uzodimma, said they were at the State House to see the president on various issues.
According to him: “We’ve seen the President on various issues from minimum wage, which he met with labor yesterday, the Supreme Court ruling and other national issues that concerns states as well. It’s omnibus.”