Govs Makes U-turn Over Supreme Court Ruling On LG Autonomy, Reveals Next Action
Anambra State Governor, Prof. Charles Soludo, has said that state governors will meet Thursday night to review the judgment of the Supreme Court that granted financial autonomy to local government.
Soludo, who spoke to State House correspondents after meeting with President Bola Tinubu, said even though he had not seen the judgement, it was “great”.
He said, “That’s great. I mean, the Supreme Court is the final authority and I am a democrat. I believe in the rule of law. And once the Supreme Court has spoken, it has spoken. Tonight, I think the Governors Forum is meeting to review this.”
The governor said there was a need for resources to get down to the grassroots, adding that public funds must work for the people at all levels of government.
“We need to promote accountability. We need to promote transparency in the utilization of public resources at all levels, to be able to lift the burden of the common man,” he said.
Asked what would happen in Anambra, since the Supreme Court only recognise elected local government officials, Soludo said litigations were hampering the conduct of local government election in the state, but efforts were on to do the needful.
He said: “When I was elected into office, that’s one of the things I promised our people [to conduct local government election] because in Anambra, I think the first local government election we had was in 1998.
“I promised the people of Anambra that we’re going to have local government election, and I stated that in my inaugural speech. We’ve just passed the Independent Electoral Commission Law of Anambra State and we’re putting together the institutions to be able to organize that. It is a promise I made and when I make a promise, I am serious about keeping it.
“At least under my administration, we’ve made sure that the resources get down to the local governments to address their staff, paying teachers, paying the pensioners, and paying primary health workers and so on.
“The other thing that is peculiar is that there has been a lingering litigation that stopped local government elections in the past and that particular litigation is still in the courts. We are going to see how we handle all of that and to organize a local government election as appropriate.”
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